The consolidation of healthcare system and the achievement of health-related services stability on its basis are one of the central and long-term complex task of any state. The primary goal of community engagement is partnering with the community in order to address problematic issues. The involvement of citizens in the research process, as well as the institutionalization of their participation, is the most important tool and indicator of the success of the transformation. Sapienza et al. (2007) provide an example on how “the National Children’s Study helped guide the development of community engagement strategies in epidemiologic research” (p. 247). The population willingly contributing to medical studies provides researchers with actual and evidence-based data that can be used to improve healthcare policies and bring necessary changes to the system in general. In societies where the community is engaged in a dialog with the healthcare system, monitoring population’s health becomes easier. A willingness to provide data to the official research shows community’s support for the state’s health-related initiatives, as well as allows to track their results.
More importantly, community engagement also helps explore diseases’ effects on society, how they are perceived, and what long-term consequences they might bring. This became especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic: people provided valuable data on how the disease manifested in their organism, what unusual effects did they experience, what were their reactions on different types of vaccines. Only by working closely with an active, engaging community, the healthcare specialists were able to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Sapienza et al. (2007) support that claim, stating that “community engagement is critical to the long-term success of any longitudinal epidemiologic study” (p. 247). The pandemic revealed how immensely important it is to maintain a constructive dialogue with population in order to properly support it during challenging times.
Work Cited
Sapienza, Jessica N., et al. (2007). “Community Engagement in Epidemiological Research.” Ambulatory Pediatrics: The Official Journal of the Ambulatory Pediatric Association, 7(3), 247–252.