Partnering with Communities for Tuberculosis Control
Indonesian civil society and faith-based organizations build bridges between communities and their health system
“Indonesian communities still have a lot of misperceptions about tuberculosis (TB). Many people think it’s hereditary or it’s a supernatural force,” says Ida Farida, a volunteer community health worker in the Tanah Tinggi area of Jakarta, Indonesia — a country which bears the third largest TB burden worldwide.
Coupled with difficulties accessing and affording health care, misconceptions about TB is hampering disease prevention and control efforts for the most disadvantaged communities. The Government of Indonesia faces an uphill battle in realizing its vision for a TB-free Indonesia by 2030, and Indonesia’s cultural, linguistic, and geographical diversity make it difficult for the government to communicate TB information to everyone who needs it.
Could a more community approach work? Indonesian officials are betting the answer is yes.
The Government of Indonesia is unlocking innovative ways to partner with local civil society organizations (CSOs) to deliver information in a way that takes Indonesia’s cultural diversity and complexity into account. Key to this approach is activating people and organizations that communities trust to help bridge the gap between people and the health system.
In Tanah Tinggi, Ida embodies the critical link between sick people and their access to health services. Through the USAID Community Empowerment Against Tuberculosis (CEPAT, or “fast” in Indonesian) project, Ida and other community health workers work in communities to understand their health care knowledge, misconceptions, and needs. She then shares this information with local health facilities so they can be responsive to the community’s needs, improve service delivery, and encourage good health-seeking behaviors.
USAID CEPAT also partners with trusted community-based organizations. In addition to training community health volunteers like Ida, the project teamed up with Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim social organization, to help local public health facilities more effectively raise community awareness about disease prevention and control. The relationship that Nahdlatul Ulama and other CSOs have built with local communities helps public health facilities reach people with critical information and services through an existing channel they trust.
Other Indonesian organizations like Jaringan Kesehatan/Kesejahteraan Masyarakat (Health Network/ Community Welfare) and the Roman Catholic Diocese are also helping this effort. Along with many other smaller CSOs, these organizations keep the pulse on health needs of diverse communities across the country and are well-positioned to disseminate health information to their networks of millions of members.
As volunteers like Ida help foster stronger links between communities and their health systems, willingness to seek timely care at local health facilities grows. In turn, this facilitates more data collection and research, which builds the evidence base and informs future TB activities, thereby ensuring that Indonesia is making progress in the fight.
As part of a comprehensive approach to strengthening health systems, USAID ensures that the results at the local level are reported to district and provincial governments, raising government officials’ awareness of the public health burden on existing, limited resources that TB and other diseases create.
As health and wellness make their way into the national conversation, communities and health policy makers are strengthening their partnerships with civil society organizations to push this progress forward. Through partnerships, USAID is advancing Indonesia’s self-reliance in engaging local communities in the fight against TB and other diseases.
Thanks to the work of Ida and other volunteer community health workers, the local health facility serving Tanah Tinggi now detects more TB cases. As diagnosis and successful treatment rates rise — and as the government, health system, and communities strengthen their united front — fewer people contract and suffer from TB and other similar diseases.
These partnerships show that when every life truly matters, partnering with people is critical.
About the Author
Jennifer Jackson is the Senior Communications Advisor for the Office of Health Systems in USAID’s Bureau for Global Health.
