Participatory Health Research in the Education of Health and Social Work Professionals

Abstract

New approaches in health professionals’ education aim to transform health-care systems, moving away from the traditional focus on tertiary care to initiatives that foster community engagement. Participatory health research (PHR) aims to maximize the participation of those whose life or work is the subject of the research in all stages of the research process. A key aspect of PHR is its explicit intention of bringing about social change, with impact beyond academic knowledge production. PHR can thus lead to a reform, both in terms of education and practice. PHR is an approach that demands specific forms of learning and teaching. Participants in PHR education should reflect on the different dimensions of PHR while developing their own projects. Based on the author’s experience with the international course of PHR developed by the International Collaboration for Participatory Research (ICPHR), the ways in which PHR education could be designed both within and outside of universities will be described. The goal is to present possible strategies for increasing PHR in higher education for health professionals with the focus on identifying the form and content congruent with implementing transformative learning.

Participatory Health Research is a need to health care. All over the world politicians, stakeholders and citizens stated that more professional health workers are needed. It is also clear that those efforts to scale up health professionals’ education and training must not only increase the quantity of health workers, but should address issues of quality and relevance in order to address community and population health needs and engage people on searching for healthy settings and lifestyle. (WHO 2006, 2013)