Advancing quality integrated health services through relational community engagement

A new report, entitled “Relationality in community engagement: its role in humanizing healthcare and achieving quality integrated health Services” has been developed in collaboration with the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF) and launched at the Seventh edition of the World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH) taking place in Doha on 13–14 November 2024.

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, community engagement has further resurfaced as a necessary condition, and a shared responsibility within health systems, for emergency preparedness, response and recovery efforts in global public health.

The new report introduces the background and current policy context for community engagement across different WHO regions. It presents an Integrated Change Framework (ICF) to embed and strengthen community engagement processes in health system functions and activities; explores eight selected country case studies, highlighting common success elements incorporated into the ICF; and concludes with recommendations for applying the ICF to improve health system performance.

Relational community engagement emphasizes improving relationships among health and care workers, between them and with the people they care for. To enable this, governments are encouraged to focus on the following aspects.

1. Promote relational leadership, management, and governance

• Invest in adaptive, transformative leadership models to drive whole-system learning.
• Develop political commitment to adopt a relationship-focused approach to community engagement as an inherent way of working in health systems and across sectors.
• Engage the health and care workforce and civil service across sectors to develop a renewed vision for public sector values and ways of working.

2. Strengthen relationship-building capabilities in health systems

• Strengthen communication and collaboration in health systems, setting relational competency benchmarks and invest in local capacities of communities to address power imbalances.
• Develop participatory skills in multi-disciplinary teams and interprofessional practice.
• Integrate social and contextual data in health service design and delivery.

3. Invest in transdisciplinary research and practice development

• Fund research using the Integrated Change Framework (ICF) to foster collaboration across the sciences, technology, and the arts.

Relationality in community engagement is critical for improving today’s health systems, since it represents a powerful way of enhancing patient care; promoting collaboration, connection and belonging; addressing the social determinants of health; improving equity; and integrating lived experience and holistic knowledge systems through community-centred approaches to health and well-being.