BETTER WORDS: IRHAP WORKING GLOSSARY
How do we find a common framework with which to pursue research, policy, and interventions between religious and public health leaders?
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- African Traditional Healer
- African traditional healer (TH) denotes a complex typology and is constituted differently across Africa. For the purposes of this report, three types of indigenous health providers, or traditional healers, are indicated. They are constituted by (i) diviners, (ii) herbalists and (iii) traditional birth attendants (TBAs). Diviners practise on the basis of engagement with ancestral and spirit forces. Some herbalists distinguish themselves as working solely with herbal remedies. TBAs are community-based pregnancy and childbirth care providers, but often provide health advice, education and care beyond the field of maternity (ARHAP 2006)
- agency
- The capacity to 'do', to move into action, to utilize the assets one has, to seek and achieve desired
goals, as affected by social and environmental conditions. In the context of dramatic health challenges such as
HIV and AIDS (and conditions of poverty), human communities have assets and the capacity to exert agency.
Agency rests within individuals, but even more so in communities, organizations. The common assumption that
poor people are 'not able to do' is untenable. Poor people are always engaged in strategies and struggles for
survival, adaptation and freedom (ARHAP 2006)
- AIDS-competent church
- A church whose teaching and practice indicate clearly that stigma and discrimination against PLWHAs is sin and against the will of God; which, along with its ecumenical partners, has a full understanding of the severity of the HIV and AIDS epidemic in Africa; which reaches out and responds to collaborative efforts in the field of HIV and AIDS; which find its role in prevention of HIV and AIDS, taking into consideration pastoral, cultural and gender issues; and which use its resources and structures to provide care, counselling and support for those affected
- alignment
- In IRHAP work, mainly used to signify the drawing together of religious and public health systems for better
mutual articulation of their respective strengths and, hence, for more effective health interventions
- appreciative inquiry approach
- A research attitude of respect for the insights and perspectives of ordinary people, community and religious leaders, and health workers, and in doing this drawing from the approach of appreciative inquiry
- assets
- Assets refer to a range of capabilities, skills, resources, links, associations, organizations and institutions, already present in a context, by which people endogenously engage in activities that respond to their experienced situation
- assets-based approach
- An assets-based approach takes as its starting point the concern that people and their communities should be viewed as having assets, which can be effectively mobilised or leveraged in order to empower communities, rather than as having deficits, which hamper their development
- assets, network and agency
- The three focus areas of the research is on what religious entities and capacities exist (assets), how these entities relate to one another (networks), and how people make use of the assets (agency)
- bophelo
- A Sesotho word, bophelo has a rich lexical range. Its meanings range from biological life (of humans,
animals and plants) to the social life of individuals, families, villages and nations. Religion and health are an
integral and integrated dimension of the social dimension of bophelo
- church
- This term sometimes carries problematic elements (especially in inter-religious writing). In most ARHAP work we use this term sparingly, although occasionally to indicate Christian denominational structures at a regional/ national/international level. For example, a localized gathering of congregations of the same nature would be a church – or in terms of such denominational structure as 'The Catholic church' or 'The Anglican church'
- community health worker
- A locally organized religious or faith-based entity, meeting regularly for specifically religious purposes, whose primary function is the formation of faith. This term is not intended to indicate only Christian groups but is used to signify all such gatherings of any faith.
- community systems
- Community systems are community-led structures and mechanisms used by communities through which community members and community based organisations and groups interact, coordinate and deliver their responses to the challenges and needs affecting their communities. Many community systems are small-scale and/or informal. Others are more extensive – they may be networked between several organisations and involve various sub-systems. For example, a large care and support system may have distinct sub-systems for comprehensive home-based care, providing nutritional support, counselling, advocacy, legal support, and referrals for access to services and follow-up (GFATM 2010)
- community systems strengthening
- CSS is an approach that promotes the development of informed, capable and coordinated communities and community based organisations, groups and structures. CSS involves a broad range of community actors, enabling them to contribute as equal partners alongside other actors to the long-term sustainability of health and other interventions at community level, including an enabling and responsive environment in which these contributions can be effective. The goal of CSS is to achieve improved health outcomes by developing the role of key affected populations and communities and of community based organisations in the design, delivery, monitoring and evaluation of services and activities related to prevention, treatment, care and support of people affected by HIV, tuberculosis, malaria and other major health challenges. (GFATM 2010)
- congregation
- A locally organized religious or faith-based entity, meeting regularly for specifically religious purposes, whose primary function is the formation of faith. This term is not intended to indicate only Christian groups but is used to signify all such gatherings of any faith
- congregational health initiative
- Health work linked to local congregation(s), with differing levels of formality and organisation
- district health system
- Comprised of a well-defined population, living within a clearly delineated administrative and geographical area, and including all organisations and individuals promoting health or providing health care (WHO 1998)
- facility-based vs non-facility-based
- Facility-based health services such as hospitals, clinics, surgeries, dispensaries – that are run from a facility, and usually provide formal health services; Non-facility-based health services such as support groups, homebased care, health education – which are taking place in communities and homes; such services are as a rule more informal and less dependant on external expertise and funding. There are exceptions, where high-tech interventions are operated from community groups
- faith-based organisation
- An increasingly problematic term. Broadly speaking, FBOs are those religious entities that have a structured nature as well as religious support. This includes organisations and loose initiatives tied to religious groups (such as mission hospitals or faith-based CBOs and NGOs); as well as community networks. In ARHAP work we usually do not include in this term groups formed for the purpose of forming / developing / promoting a religious commitment, such as congregations or denominations
- grounded theory
- Emergent methodology, or theory developed inductively from a corpus of data
- health care providers
- Individuals who are trained to provide various health services
- health
- The state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (WHO et al)
- health system
- [defining HS is an ongoing project] A health system includes all actors, institutions and resources that undertake health actions, where a health action is defined as one where the primary intent is to improve health. Although the defining goal of a health system is to improve population health, other intrinsic goals are: to be responsive to the population it serves, determined by the way in which people are treated and the environment in which they are treated, and to ensure that the financial burden of paying for health is fairly distributed across households (WHO 2007)
- health workers
- Individuals who are trained and employed to provide various health services
- health world
- Healthworld refers to people’s conceptions of health and their health-seeking behaviour as framed by the
background store of inherited or socialised knowledge that defines their being in the world. It is shaped by the
health policies of governments, the variety of health practices available to them, and the interaction between
health and religious practices, as well as questions of social development and environmental realities (ARHAP 2006)
- International Religious Health Assets Programme
- An international network of scholars and practitioners dedicated to developing a better understanding of, and greater appreciation for, the role of religious health assets for public health in development contexts
- intangible religious health assets
- The volitional, motivational and mobilizing capacities that are rooted in vital affective, symbolic and relational dimensions of religious faith, belief, behavior and ties. Local knowledge, access, reach, participation, trust and accompaniment are just some of these 'intangible' religious health assets
- leverage
- First level: moving ‘resting’ religious health assets through the human agency for health interventions; Second level: strategically enhancing RHAs to help religious entities realize their potential more effectively, to encourage the replication of promising practices among religious entities, and to promote meaningful ties between such religious entities and public health services in strengthening health systems
- Participatory Inquiry into Religious Health Assets, Networks and Agency (PIRHANA)
- The primary research toolset developed by ARHAP to assess the contribution of religion and religious entities to health and wellbeing in Africa. It is based on a commitment to participatory inquiry, as well as to the framework of assets and agency
- participatory
- Participatory The nature of both the process and content of the research. The process is inclusive and engaging of ordinary people, so that while the broad direction of the discussion is introduced, the content is driven by the participants themselves
- Primary Health Care
- PHC is understood as a strategy for organising health systems to promote health. It encompasses essential health care made universally available to individuals and families by a means acceptable to them and at a cost that the society can afford, as well as intersectoral action for health. It is the nucleus of a country’s health system and contributes to national socio-economic development. It is founded on recognition of the need for political action to address the social determinants of health inequity, taking account of the particular configuration of power relations within any society
- public health
- "The science and art of promoting health, preventing disease and prolonging life through just and organized efforts of society"
- qualitative research methodologies
- Approaches and tools used to provide a depth of insight into the meaning of beliefs, perceptions, attitudes and practices within the contexts in which they appear
- religion
- [Note, defining religion is an ongoing challenge]. Briefly, we broadly define religion as the wide variety of comprehensive systems of sacred beliefs and practices, usually (but not always) issuing in religious institutions, groups or organisations that range from fluid to codified, popular to formal, centralised to decentralised, and communal to institutional. In Africa, this includes particularly African traditional religions, Islam, Christianity and a wide variety of other identifiable but smaller religious formations (ARHAP 2006)
- religious coordinating body
- Intermediary organisations responsible for supervising and coordinating religious activities of congregations; RCB may also supervise and support the health work of congregations
- religious entity
- The term religious entity (RE) seeks to capture the broad range of tangible RHAs, incorporating religious facilities, organisations and practitioners, both bio-medical and traditional. This encompassing term is necessary in order to be able to speak to the more formalised religious entities such as faith based organisations, as well as those less institutionalised entities such as individual traditional healers (ARHAP-WHO 2006)
- religious health asset (RHA)
- An asset located in or held by a religious entity that can be leveraged for the purposes of development or public health. The notion of an RHA captures the basic idea that assets carry value and may be leveraged for greater value. If they are not used then they remain at rest, but they are always available for use through some agentive act. The term is used broadly to encompass any religion or faith (ARHAP 2006)
- tangible religious health assets
- The more visible and most studied religious health assets, including facilities, personnel, and activities, sometimes resembling those of secular entities. Interwoven with this tangible level, however, are the 'intangible' religious health assets described above
- vertical programmes
- Targeted disease-specific programmes, e.g. ART, delivered through the health system. Such programmes can weaken the health system, are often separately funded, hence better resourced, and draw expertise and other resources away from the primary health care and essential health system functions
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