SIHI philippines Hub
continent: asia | country: philippines
Applying an intersectional gender lens to research on social innovations in health:
Two case studies of community interventions in the Philippines
This project delves deeper into two social innovations in health to understand how intersections of gender and other social stratifiers interplay with and shape social innovations at the community level.
BACKGROUND
This project is based on the premise that health challenges are shaped by both gender and intersecting social stratifiers. These intersecting inequalities, often referred to as social determinants, encompass factors such as socioeconomic status, age, disability, and ethnicity. Together, these variables play a significant role in influencing people’s vulnerability to various health conditions.
Recognizing that gender and intersecting social stratifiers are crucial factors in health challenges, our aim was to explore how these factors come into play when it comes to community-based social innovations in health. For this project, we examined two social innovations: (a) Kalinga Health, initiated by Innovations for Community Health (InnovationsCH), is a comprehensive, sustainable program for tuberculosis care that addresses major gaps in Tuberculosis case detection, reporting, quality care, case holding, and affordability.
An element in Kalinga Health is the participation of K! Leaders, who are community leaders trained to conduct house-to-house visits to refer and monitor patients and help ensure their compliance to their treatment regimen. The second is (b) Holistic Water Systems for Pumping Water Uphill, an innovation initiated by the Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation, Inc. (AIDFI), also known as the AIDFI ram pump. This hydraulic ram pump model that pumps water uphill to remote upland communities, helping improve the lives of the villagers in terms of health, nutrition, and sanitation.
methods and approaches
To help ensure that we had gender sensitive methodology, we submitted our protocol and tools to the Philippine Social Science Council’s Ethics Review Board. We adopted a flexible open research strategy for our case study inquiry to support the understanding of the impact of social innovations to the community and particularly to women who have participated in it through an intersectional gender lens.
We conducted desk research and secondary data collection to produce a brief literature review and situational background. For the primary data collection, we conducted site visits to two communities and held in-depth interviews with key informants and community members. Focus group discussions (FGDs) were also done, particularly with women involved in the project, to understand the perspectives of the different stakeholders.
In our interviews and FGDs, we covered various topics, including roles and responsibilities; perceptions on gender roles; gendered responsibiltiies when it comes to water, household and livelihood; participation in the innovation and also the impact of the innovation.
insights
Gender norms, gendered labor, and volunteerism influence participation in social innovations and health programmes.
It is apparent that men, who are expected to pursue livelihood and work, are deemed to have more merit than unpaid labor, which includes domestic responsibilities that women traditionally fill. Women are expected to take care of the kids and to drop everything when activities related to the home need to be carried out. They therefore engage in a balancing act: juggling their household responsibilities, their means of livelihood, and their volunteer work – the triple roles of women. There is therefore a need to recognize that the roles of men and women go beyond what has been dictated by society. They should be acknowledged as equally important (financial gain must not be the sole basis of merit).
Social Innovations in Health are intentional in addressing intersecting vulnerabilities.
Social innovations in health recognize the significant influence of social, cultural, and economic aspects in promoting the ownership and sustainability of the initiative. Hence, community empowerment is an intentional part of the holistic approach in order for the community to feel ownership of the project. Solutions are then tailor-fit to the community’s needs and in the socio-cultural spheres in which their lives are embedded.
Social Innovations in Health create opportunities for community participation and improve health outcomes.
It was evident that social innovations in health often address a health need directly but also create new opportunities for people that lead to its social impact. When it comes to empowering people to take ownership of their own health, this involves enabling them to be involved in the process of SIH. This encourages them to take on roles and responsibilities that they did not have before. Opportunities for community participation also allows for gaining access to resources, new knowledge and skills, social relationships and networks.
Gender norms, roles and behaviors intersect with other social stratifiers to impact health outcomes.
We saw observable intersections of gender, geographic location and socio-economic status which impact the experience of health and health conditions while collecting data. Often, when looking at social determinants of health, one tends to look at just one aspect, e.g. gender alone or poverty alone. There needs to be more understanding of how gender and multiple social stratifiers affect a community’s health need, and how these interact to shape the experiences of people, their health conditions, and their access to health services.
Learn more
This video tells the story of a homegrown innovation by the Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation, Inc. (AIDFI), which developed a low-cost, eco-friendly hydraulic ram pump to bring clean water to remote upland villages in the Philippines without the need for electricity or fuel. It also explores how this innovation is transforming daily life through improved health, sanitation, and agriculture, while highlighting how gender and social roles intersect to influence who takes part in these community-driven innovations.
This video features Kalinga Health, a social innovation by Innovations in Community Health (ICH) that provides comprehensive, community-based TB care in the Philippines – one of the countries with the highest tuberculosis burdens in the world. It also explores how gender and other social factors intersect to influence social innovations at the community level, emphasizing the need for inclusive and equitable solutions.
Recommendations and implications
for further research, policy and practice
Upon reflection on the implications on further research, our calls to action are the following:
01
Support the generation of evidence on gender inequalities in the access of health services, including the vulnerability to and experience of disease, responses to treatment, and the discrimination and unequal access to health care.
02
Promote an inclusive research agenda that recognizes the health needs of women, girls, men, boys and people in all their diversity, including those with non-binary identities.
03
Allocate funds for gender-responsive programs, aimed at fostering production of new knowledge for a better understanding of gendered inequities in the access of health services.
04
For funding of projects, require grant applicants to indicate the relevance of gender in their research proposal and how the gender perspective will be integrated into the entire program / implementation / research or innovation cycle. When gender analysis is not relevant for the program or research study, an explanation should be given by applicants.
learning module
Our learning module is entitled “Applying an Intersectional Gender Lens on Social Innovations in Health.” In this course, we explore the transformative potential of adopting an intersectional gender lens to social innovations in health. This module is divided into three learning units. The first unit talks about social innovation in health, and the second unit gives an overview of gender, gender dimensions, intersectionality and intersectional gender analysis. In the third unit, the intersectional gender lens will be applied to analyzing social innovations in health.
UNIT 1
Understanding Social Innovation in Health
UNIT 2
Understanding Gender, Gender Dimensions, and Intersectionality
UNIT 3
Applying an Intersectional Gender Lens in Analyzing Social Innovations in Health
Each unit begins with an overview of the topics covered, the unit objectives, and materials needed for that unit. To aid in learning, discussions of topics are interspersed with activities and readings. At the end of each unit, key takeaways are summarized and an evaluation activity given to assess the learning of the concepts discussed.
Join us on this journey as we examine real-life case studies, explore best practices, and engage in thoughtful discussions to ensure that our social innovations in health are truly transformative, leaving no one behind. Together, let’s work towards a future where health equity and inclusivity become the foundation of our collective efforts to improve well-being for all.