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PhD: Social Innovation for Community Health Workers from a Ugandan Perspective: An Afrocentric Approach

Funder(s): NTU Vice-Chancellor's (VC) Scholarship

1 October 2022 – 1 October 2026

Summary

The contextual embeddedness of social innovations matters in rural Afrocentric community healthcare. Understanding the local context helps determine which health innovation to co-design and deploy with rural communities. However, the literature on social innovation has historically centred on Western and Eurocentric models and frameworks, while overlooking African epistemologies and lived experiences. As a result, deployed health innovations have often proved unsustainable, as these Western solutions do not align with the way of life and cultural values (e.g. collectivism) of Afrocentric cultural institutions. Prioritising imported Western or Eurocentric knowledge systems may alienate local African communities. Framing Afrocentricity as an epistemic repositioning, this study deliberately uses the Afrocentric paradigm as a lens to examine how social innovation theory engages with rural cultural institutions in Uganda. This study explores the perspectives that can help ground social innovation for community healthcare within these Afrocentric cultural institutions.

Methodological approaches

  • Bibliometric analysis methods (using diagrams, graphs, and tables) to improve understanding of research in the field of social innovation.
  • Triangulated qualitative research method: Interviews, Observations, and Focus Group Discussions
  • Inductive research approach to ensure the pathway considers the social and cultural norms of the communities and avoids over-utilised theoretical lenses
  • Interpretivist philosophical approach
  • Develop a robust analytical framework, using a novel approach that blended Manifest coding with Gioia’s data structure methodology

Team members

Lead Researcher

NTU Supervisors

External supervisors/advisors

Collaborators

  • Musoke, D., Nakalawa, S., Brown, M.O., Lubega, G.B. and Gibson, L., 2024. Experiences of Research Coproduction in Uganda: Comment on" Research Coproduction: An Underused Pathway to Impact". International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 13, p.8806.
  • Gorry, J., Gibson, L., Bukenya, D.J., Odeyemi, P. and Brown, M.O., 2023. Patient safety, global governance, and the right to health in integrated primary health care. In Research Handbook on Patient Safety and the Law (pp. 193-205). Edward Elgar Publishing.
  • Musoke, D., Lubega, G.B., Gbadesire, M.S., Boateng, S., Twesigye, B., Gheer, J., Nakachwa, B., Brown, M.O., Brandish, C., Winter, J. and Ng, B.Y., 2023. Antimicrobial stewardship in private pharmacies in Wakiso district, Uganda: a qualitative study. Journal of Pharmaceutical Policy and Practice, 16(1), p.147.