Assessing Government Actors' Knowledge of Community Participation in Health Governance in Dodoma, Central Tanzania

Abstract

Community participation (CP) has been recognized as the key principle in health governance. Yet, knowledge of its effective applicability varied. This paper assessed the government health actors' knowledge of CP in health governance. The purpose of the paper was to examine the actors' level of knowledge concerning the perspectives of CP in health governance. Purposive and convenient sampling was applied due to the need to meet specific participants and the many other categories, making reliability certain. A sample of 79 was engaged, comprising community representatives in health committees at district and facility levels, health service providers, political actors, and administrators. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and documentary reviews. The analysis was executed by theme and content analysis that employed semantic differentials and weighted mean. It was found that most community representatives in facility-level health committees had low knowledge of CP in health governance. This was connected to the low level of education that these actors have. The paper found various perspectives on CP, including resource mobilization, use of health services, facilitation of health services, community representation in health services, and broadness of the process of CP. It was concluded that most government health actors had a low level of knowledge regarding CP. This was related to the ineffectiveness of local health governance and recommended developing a CP policy that defines and articulates how CP should be understood and practiced in the context of health services.