Community participation in health care. Community eye care research in South West Cameroon.

While conducting a research in community eye care in South West Cameroon, in June, 2012, it was interesting to find increasing willingness of community members to engage in health.

Although there is a huge debate on effectiveness of decentralisation in Primary Health Care especially on the issue of capacity for management at the grass root (rural or village levels), discussions with community members revealed willingness to take responsibility of their health with increased awareness.
For instance people who used eye care facilities were people who had knowledge of the care for the eyes. Indeed, they were mostly of higher economic status than most in the remote areas.

This also identified socio-economic status as another determinant for engaging in health. However new pilot schemes to address financial barriers to accessing health care such as the Community Based Health Insurance (CBHI) pre-payment schemes has been introduced in some of these areas, there is limited awareness of benefits of such schemes to the community who it is meant to serve.

Key finding was poor sensitisation on health care and its services especially for people in the informal sector is a major barrier to community engagement.
The research suggested that program implementers should ensure effective community sensitisation using right mediums as most rural dwellers have limited access to electronic media hence rely on local mediums such as 'town criers' to access information. Other communication strategies could be explored to ensure these health services gets to those most in need and therefore increase uptake in utilisation.