Investigating Funding Policies for New Clinics in Rural Northwest Region, Cameroon.
Abstract Healthcare policies are complex health promotion strategies used by healthcare policy designers to create awareness, educate, and develop the capacity of sustainable health promotion practices in rural communities. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to investigate an occurrence...
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Format: | Others |
Language: | en |
Published: |
ScholarWorks
2017
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Online Access: | https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/4540 https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5644&context=dissertations |
Summary: | Abstract
Healthcare policies are complex health promotion strategies used by healthcare policy
designers to create awareness, educate, and develop the capacity of sustainable health
promotion practices in rural communities. The purpose of this phenomenological study
was to investigate an occurrence being experience by rural residents in the NWR of
Cameroon where residents lacked nearby healthcare clinics where they can seek medical
treatment and to determine if there were any funding policy requirements for the
construction of new rural community clinics at the NW Regional Delegation of Public
Health. Using Wright's conceptual framework on policy analysis and evaluation and
Coleman's rational action theory, data were collected through in-depth interviews from a
sample of 10 participants composed of healthcare policy designers and rural community
residents. The data were analyzed using Colaizzi's 7-step method for analyzing
phenomenological data. Findings indicated that the lack of primary health care clinics in
rural communities imposed five main challenges which limit access to rural healthcare:
the non-availability of healthcare facilities in rural settings, inaccessibility to rural
communities, the unaffordability of healthcare in rural communities and lack of
healthcare insurance, unacceptability due to lack of health education and social stigma, as
well as lack of accommodation for new clinics. Furthermore, the Minister of Public
Health use existing healthcare funding policy requirements at the NW regional delegation
to make final policy decisions. The results of this study may be used to create positive
social change by establishing nonbiased health policy intervention strategies and will also
help the Government of Cameroon to establish health promotion policy guidelines and
policy adjustments that address the lack of clinics in rural NWR of Cameroon. |
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