Research competency is difficult to educate to some stakeholders.

[Patchara]

Research competency is difficult to understand for stakeholders and more difficult for researcher to educate to some stakeholders.

Research competency is necessary for stakeholders to understand when they participate in trial. However in some groups of stakeholders such as sex worker, adolescent, etc. They have low educate and they need lay language to teach them. Some words in scientific cannot translate to common word and difficult to explain to understand. Help each other among stakeholders can decrease this problem. Who can tell me other methods can help them to understand?

Topic

[Cathy Slack]

Hi all, just a response to  Jauhara’s comments about how the process of developing protocols can fail to incorporate views/ opinions of site-level community representatives. 

It might help if community-representative views at the level of the protocol-development team were collated and disseminated to community-representatives at the site level. 

Then there would be more knowledge about concerns and how they were responded to when protocols were developed. 

Enjoying lesson 3!

Cathy

[Leader Kanyiki Ngooyi]

I would agree with Jauhara.

For me, on top of what Jauhara and Patchara mentioned, we have got to ensure that stakeholders education is an ongoing process just as we in the field get ongoing trainings and knowledge updates.

secondly we’ve got to strategize our education plan in a way that it responds to specific needs of specific stakeholders. meaning it should not be a one size fits all type of approach. considering also that our stakeholders are often not at the same level when it comes to understanding HIV research, we should adapt our education content and style/methods accordingly. some folks will need very basic literacy, some will need a refresher training on some key stuffs, some will understand a scenarios style of sharing, some will grasp the message through role playing, etc. and some stakeholders find it easy when the messaging is contextualised in what they do, for them to understand.

So our duties are not that easy folks!!! I have to remind myself of this everytime!

Thanks for these great topics and insights from fellows.

[Jauhara Nanyondo]

Dear Anne,  I love your questions they are very insight full. They would help one gauge how far they have gone to understand the community they are working in, in particular doing research in, whether the research they are doing is relevant to where they are conducting it from and whether community has contribution to the whole research that is taking place in their area.

I would rate myself at 6 in terms of Biomedical research competency.

For the second question, it is challenge in the area of  understanding community needs and priorities! Little is done to explore community needs and priorities since the research ideas are developed from outside the participating community.For example most protocols that we have implemented have been developed from the US, the implementing research site does little input the process, and eventually the community need and priority is not reflected anywhere. The funder/ sponsor of the protocol has his agenda and it takes precedent.

In order to engage stakeholders, a combination of tools have to be used. they include; conducting workshops, training, breakfast meetings, briefing meetings, community meetings, bazzare, radio talk shows, engaging the leadership structure of the community  etc. Through these the population engaged would improve their research competency which eventually enhances mutual understanding.

I still agree these are key issues to be done.

[Anne]

I agree with you both! Building stakeholders’ research competency is challenging but critical to improving their ability to participate in decision making.

The GPP guiding principles remind us that building a common or mutual understanding of objectives between stakeholders is vital for building effective partnerships. While researchers are responsible for engaging and involving stakeholders in the development of appropriate educational strategies, to build stakeholders’ understanding of the research and science, they are also responsible for building their own socio-cultural competency about local norms, needs, and cultures.

So everyone.. take a moment and think about how you would rate YOURSELF?

How would you rate your biomedical research competency, from 1-10 (10 being the best)?

And then how would you rate your socio-cultural competency or your understanding of your trial community’s needs, priorities, norms and circumstances?

And how can we engage stakeholders to strengthen these competencies in order to enhance our mutual understanding?

 

[Jauhara Nanyondo]

I don’t agree to the statement that research competency is difficult to educate to some stakeholders. Researchers are supposed to make sure that all that they have to bring in the community is understood by all stakeholders. They are expected to simplify all the science that there is to help the stakeholders despite their  educational  background, they should be made to understand the viability of the research brought to them.

Terminologies that are not clear should not be used to avoid confusion and later build a transparent relationship within both parties.

Again if researchers plan to educate the stakeholders, socially and culturally acceptable language should be used that the stakeholders own and identify with what they are being taught to understand.

In a nutshell, it is the responsibility of the researchers to educate his / her stakeholders so that they understand what he or she plans to bring to the identified community.

[Author]

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