Affordable Quality Health (AQH), under which InOrder is set up, has received a grant from the Vijayavahini Charitable Foundation (supported by TATA Trusts) for a project named “Strengthening Primary Healthcare through Participatory Action Research in Northern Districts of Telangana”.
The project aims to understand and analyze the effects of various determinants of health like social, environmental, finance on the health outcomes and health seeking behaviour of the tribal community in the northern districts of Telangana. Participatory action research which is a well-recognised methodology for understanding the needs of the vulnerable population will be adapted for this study. Tribal communities will be a part of both research and designing an intervention model for strengthening primary care in this project.
This 14-month-long period project will be carried out in two different phases. In the first phase, a participatory action research will be undertaken in the primary district (Bhadradri Kothagudem). This will be followed by a cross-sectional study in the remaining four districts (K.B. Asifabad, Mulugu, Mancherial, Jayashankar Bhupalpally) along with a qualitative study. The second phase will be focused on developing and piloting prototypes and models based on the findings from the study. The project will be carried out with an on ground partner organisation named Indigenous Development Organization (IDO), an implementation organization that works with tribal populations in the Bhadradri Kothagudem district.
This collaborative project will be a substantial landmark towards strengthening primary health care through community-owned solutions in for tribal dominant districts of Telangana.
The project team will be guided by Dr. N. Krishna Reddy and Mr. Girish Bommakanti as advisors on the project. The project will be led by Dr. Shrikant Kalaskar with support from Dr. Chilshu Chandran, Sushma Dsouza and Dr. Shweta Singh. A dedicated field team will be based out of Bhadradri Kothagudem to undertake research and intervention support to primary healthcare system, DEIC and NRC. In addition, AQH will be onboarding subject matter experts for various domains to guide on their respective areas. The project team has initiated the work in the district Bhadradri Kothagudem by visiting tribal hamlets and interacting with the tribal communities.