The importance of community mobilization in interventions to improve sexual, reproductive, and maternal health outcomes: A review of the evidence

Abstract

Community participation, engagement, and mobilization are common components of many sexual, reproductive, and maternal health (SRMH) programs, but little consensus exists among researchers on how critical these program components are. Using principles of realist review, we reviewed a spectrum of community mobilization interventions to evaluate their use in improving five SRMH areas. Consistent with theoretical assumptions, we found that actively involving community members in leading intervention activities and/or taking ownership tends to produce better SRMH outcomes than simply relying on community members as implementers. Despite this, many fewer programs exist with this meaningful level of engagement than with more cursory engagement.

Promoting women’s and children’s health through community groups in low-income and middle-income countries: a mixed-methods systematic review of mechanisms, enablers and barriers

“…We applied our search terms to all fields. We consulted past reviews of community mobilisation to develop our search terms 2 15 22 23. We developed them so as to cover articles which (1) described interventions aiming at community mobilisation, (2) involved community groups and (3) had a health focus.…”

“…We, therefore, chose to include only community and social mobilisation as search terms, followed by manually screening articles for mention of community groups. Previous reviews of community-related constructs have similarly included a limited number of search terms 2 15 17 22 23 25…”

Community mobilization to strengthen support for appropriate and timely use of antenatal and postnatal care: A review of reviews

“…Reviews focused on LMIC settings globally (n = 12) [ 21 , 23 , 37 - 40 , 43 , 44 , 47 - 50 , 54 ], sub-Saharan Africa (n = 4) [ 20 , 36 , 52 , 53 ], and South Asia (n = 3) [ 46 , 51 , 55 ]. Three reviews had no geographic limitations and typically specified findings from high-, middle-, and low-income settings [ 41 , 42 , 45 ]. In terms of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) regions, Central and Southern Asia (n = 18) was the most represented region in the reviews, followed by Sub-Saharan Africa (n = 17), Latin America and the Caribbean (n = 8) and Eastern and South-Eastern Asia (n = 8), Europe and North America (n = 7), Northern Africa and Western Asia (n = 3), and then Oceania (n = 2).…”

“…Most reviews focused broadly on RMNCH [ 21 , 23 , 36 , 38 - 40 , 42 - 44 , 46 - 51 , 53 , 54 ]. One review specifically focused on ANC [ 45 ], one on PNC [ 37 ], and one on both ANC and PNC [ 41 ].…”

“…The last two included reviews focused on maternal health for women with HIV or prevention of mother-to-child-transmission (PMTCT) of HIV [ 20 , 52 ]. Eleven of the reviews aimed to synthesize evidence on community mobilization and/or community-based interventions and MNH outcomes [ 20 , 21 , 23 , 36 , 42 , 44 , 45 , 47 - 51 ]. The reviews varied in which MNH outcomes were investigated, especially in relation to community mobilization.…”