WHO Community Engagement Package: A Reinforcement of an Inclusive Approach to Public Health

Abstract

Community Engagement (CE) plays a crucial role in successful public health actions, achieving universal health coverage, and the realization of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. It has emerged as an effective strategy across different settings through prevention, preparedness, readiness and response, and recovery towards attaining community resilience, Primary Health Care (PHC) strengthening and universal health coverage (UHC), health security, and sustainable development. We reviewed the existing literature and various data sources and found that several CE training packages are available from international partners, focusing on the principles, theories, general questions, and CE techniques. However, there are still challenges because they are often fragmented, with little or no systematic procedures to guide the CE processes in different settings.In this light, WHO initiated a discourse on the CE Package (CEP) development in consultation with some selected international partners. The CEP Project will focus on developing a database, learning, and workshop packages based on curation of CE experiences in different settings using defined criteria. The CEP would harmonize CE processes and facilitate the reinforcement of the CE integration into public health. Further, the CEP Project serves as a collection of selected best practices for pre-service and in-service training packages for health professionals. Also, there is an anticipated inclusion into curricula of health training institutions and WHO staff capacity development. Finally, the database for compiling best practices is designed such that it can be periodically updated and becomes a compendium of CE for learning, research, and informing practice.