Modelling Community Participatory Systems to Improve Health Care interventions for Adolescents in Latin America

Abstract BackgroundCommunity participation is a systematic process where a group of people unites with the intention to solve a common problem. Although it is not new, every project adopts their own vision of participation which could impact differently to the outcomes of the project and may not lead to improve their original situation. The goal of this study was to model the interrelationship of Participatory Action Research (PAR) with the improvement of health that adds up to Community Development (CD) and describe the implementation in recent projects in Latin America.MethodsThe approach of this research is qualitative and intends to construct a framework that displays the relationshipbetweenPAR-CDtolater assess the implementation of seven Latin American projects. Group Model Building (GMB) and document assessment were used as methods.ResultsAdynamic system model is presented.The target variable is CD while control variables are the situation analysis, stakeholders, policy, bidirectional contribution, context-based for cultural-social-ethical, evidence-based and availability of resources.In the document assessment some missing elements were identified like dynamics of time, evidence base, cost-effectiveness, availability of resources, feasibility, replicability, sustainability, and scalability.ConclusionsThis research demonstrates that success of PAR-CD depends on a complex and dynamic system that contains causal loops and control factors. It alsoevidences the gap between an ideal model and what is implemented of PAR-CDgivingopportunities for improvement.Trial registration: Permission to conduct this study was granted by a research ethics committee at Colegio Medico de Cochabamba, Bolivia.