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Enrichment of community health through targeted social protection strategies

Year:
2019
Duration:
52 months
Approved budget:
$588,534.12
Researchers:
Professor Steven Ratuva
Health issue:
Wellbeing (autonomy self-determination)
Proposal type:
Pacific Health Project
Lay summary
This project investigates the socio-economic and cultural drivers of poor health amongst the Pacific population and identifies the shortcomings of existing traditional and formal social protection strategies to address these drivers. It will involve intensive field investigation of people’s economic, religious, social, professional and cultural situations, attitudes and beliefs at the individual and collective levels and how these contribute to unhealthy lifestyles. It will do a stocktake of existing social protection measures meant to address these and where they have gone wrong. It will also design a Social Protection Index (SPI) database and formula that links social protection to social determinants of health for use by the communities as well as policy makers. Fourthly, based on the detailed analysis above, the research will identify the best points of intervention and social protection strategies to promote community empowerment and long-term health enrichment within the Pacific communities using community-friendly strategies.