Social audit: building the community voice into health service delivery and planning

The community counts: a participatory approach to social audits

Authors: Susanna Hausmann-Muela

Building the community voice into planning: 25 years of methods development in social audit

Health planners and managers make decisions based on their appreciation of causality. Social audits question the assumptions behind this and try to improve quality of available evidence. The method has its ori...

Authors: Neil Andersson

Micro-regional planning: evidence-based community buy-in for health development in five of Mexico’s poorest rural districts

Community participation was a core tenet of Primary Health Care as articulated in the 1970s. How this could be generated and maintained was less clear. This historical article describes development of protocol...

Authors: Ascencio Villegas Arrizón, Neil Andersson and Robert J Ledogar

Auditing Nicaragua’s anti-corruption struggle, 1998 to 2009

Four social audits in 1998, 2003, 2006 and 2009 identified actions that Nicaragua could take to reduce corruption and public perception in primary health care and other key services.

Authors: Jorge Arosteguí, Carlos Hernandez, Harold Suazo, Alvaro Cárcamo, Rosa Maria Reyes, Neil Andersson and Robert J Ledogar

Devolution and public perceptions and experience of health services in Pakistan: linked cross sectional surveys in 2002 and 2004

The government of Pakistan introduced devolution in 2001. Responsibility for delivery of most health services passed from provincial to district governments. Two national surveys examined public opinions, use,...

Authors: Umaira Ansari, Anne Cockcroft, Khalid Omer, Noor MD Ansari, Amir Khan, Ubaid Ullah Chaudhry and Neil Andersson

Equity in development and access to health services in the Wild Coast of South Africa: the community view through four linked cross-sectional studies between 1997 and 2007

After election in 1994, the South African government implemented national and regional programmes, such as the Wild Coast Spatial Development Initiative (SDI), to provoke economic growth and to decrease inequi...

Authors: Steven Mitchell and Neil Andersson

Reproductive and sexual health in the Maldives: analysis of data from two cross-sectional surveys

The Maldives faces challenges in the provision of health services to its population scattered across many small islands. The government commissioned two separate reproductive health surveys, in 1999 and 2004, ...

Authors: Anne Cockcroft, LuWei Pearson, Candyce Hamel and Neil Andersson

Male responsibility and maternal morbidity: a cross-sectional study in two Nigerian states

Nigeria continues to have high rates of maternal morbidity and mortality. This is partly associated with lack of adequate obstetric care, partly with high risks in pregnancy, including heavy work. We examined ...

Authors: Neil Andersson, Khalid Omer, Dawn Caldwell, Mohammed Musa Dambam, Ahmed Yahya Maikudi, Bassey Effiong, Edet Ikpi, Etuk Udofia, Amir Khan, Umaira Ansari, Noor Ansari and Candyce Hamel

Health services reform in Bangladesh: hearing the views of health workers and their professional bodies

In Bangladesh, widespread dissatisfaction with government health services did not improve during the Health and Population Sector Programme (HPSP) reforms from 1998-2003. A 2003 national household survey docum...

Authors: Anne Cockcroft, Deborah Milne, Marietjie Oelofsen, Enamul Karim and Neil Andersson

Impact of community-based interventions on condom use in the Tłįchǫ region of Northwest Territories, Canada

Since 2005, the Tłįchǫ Community Services Agency (TCSA) in Canada's Northwest Territories (NT) has addressed rising rates of sexually transmitted infections (STI). In 2009, STI rates in the NT were ten times h...

Authors: Karen E Edwards, Nancy Gibson, Jim Martin, Steven Mitchell and Neil Andersson

Impact of a hospital improvement initiative in Bangladesh on patient experiences and satisfaction with services: two cross-sectional studies

The Bangladesh government implemented a pilot Hospital Improvement Initiative (HII) in five hospitals in Sylhet division between 1998 and 2003. This included management and behaviour change training for staff,...

Authors: Khalid Omer, Anne Cockcroft and Neil Andersson

Does contracting of health care in Afghanistan work? Public and service-users' perceptions and experience

In rebuilding devastated health services, the government of Afghanistan has provided access to basic services mainly by contracting with non-government organisations (NGOs), and more recently the Strengthening...

Authors: Anne Cockcroft, Amir Khan, Noor Md Ansari, Khalid Omer, Candyce Hamel and Neil Andersson

Use of social audits to examine unofficial payments in government health services: experience in South Asia, Africa, and Europe

Unofficial payments in health services around the world are widespread and as varied as the health systems in which they occur. We reviewed the main lessons from social audits of petty corruption in health ser...

Authors: Sergio Paredes-Solís, Neil Andersson, Robert J Ledogar and Anne Cockcroft

Reducing corruption in a Mexican medical school: impact assessment across two cross-sectional surveys

Corruption pervades educational and other institutions worldwide and medical schools are not exempt. Empirical evidence about levels and types of corruption in medical schools is sparse. We conducted surveys i...

Authors: Sergio Paredes-Solís, Ascensio Villegas-Arrizón, Robert J Ledogar, Verónica Delabra-Jardón, José Álvarez-Chávez, José Legorreta-Soberanis, Elizabeth Nava-Aguilera, Anne Cockcroft and Neil Andersson

Population weighted raster maps can communicate findings of social audits: examples from three continents

Maps can portray trends, patterns, and spatial differences that might be overlooked in tabular data and are now widely used in health research. Little has been reported about the process of using maps to commu...

Authors: Steven Mitchell, Anne Cockcroft and Neil Andersson

Clustering and meso-level variables in cross-sectional surveys: an example of food aid during the Bosnian crisis

Focus groups, rapid assessment procedures, key informant interviews and institutional reviews of local health services provide valuable insights on health service resources and performance. A long-standing cha...

Authors: Neil Andersson and Gilles Lamothe

Proof of impact and pipeline planning: directions and challenges for social audit in the health sector

Social audits are typically observational studies, combining qualitative and quantitative uptake of evidence with consultative interpretation of results. This often falters on issues of causality because their...

Authors: Neil Andersson