Conference Presentation: Reconnaissance Approach for Identifying & Characterising Informal Providers in Urban Slums
Informal health care providers (IHPs) tend to be people who have not gone through formal training, who provide health services which are usually grounded in traditional and subcultural practices, unregulated by formal health authorities. They dominate healthcare in settings where formal healthcare may not be optimal or at a high cost. Because of the mode of practice, IHPs are often in conflict with regulatory authorities, and so they develop covert systems which could make engaging them through more formal research engagements like interviews difficult.
As part of the CHORUS project in Nigeria, the team undertook a ‘reconnaissance’, using unstructured interviews and observations, to create safe, informal spaces to build relationships, to help provide a real-world understanding of the issues. Dr Pamela Ogbozor presented how ‘reconnaissance’ was used in the CHORUS project at the 8th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research, 2024.