Guide for Community Assessments on Women's Health Care - ICRW

Step 2: Set Objectives
Develop clear objectives that define:
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What in<strong>for</strong>mation you want to collect;
What you want to do with the in<strong>for</strong>mation and analysis produced in the workshops;
What <strong>for</strong>ms of action you would like to stimulate at the community level; and
What impact you would like to create with the MP co-facilitators.
Sample Objectives
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Document women’s concerns about their health problems and health services;
Identify obstacles to women’s effective use of health services;
Help MPs acquire firsthand in<strong>for</strong>mation about women’s health problems through direct
contact with HIV-positive women and other women at the community level; and
Start the process of building dialogue among HIV-positive women, parliamentarians and
civil society organizations.
Step 3: Prepare a Checklist of Key Questions
Once the objectives have been set, prepare a checklist of key questions that will help keep you
focused on the issues to be explored and the in<strong>for</strong>mation to be collected in the workshop sessions.
One example of a checklist is given below.
Key Questions
1. What do different stakeholder groups understand by the term “women’s health”? What
are their attitudes toward women’s health and HIV-positive women’s health?
2. What health issues do different stakeholders perceive to have the biggest impact on
women in general, and women living with HIV in particular? What are some cultural
practices (e.g., female genital cutting, polygamy, wife inheritance) and social and
environmental factors (e.g., HIV-related stigma and discrimination; high incidence of
gender-based violence, sexual crime, pollution) that have a negative impact on women’s
health?
3. What health services (e.g., care and support <strong>for</strong> women with HIV and AIDS or other longterm,
chronic or life-threatening conditions) currently exist?
4. What are the gaps in health services, including reproductive health?
5. What are women’s experiences of using these health services? Are HIV-positive women’s
experiences significantly different from the experiences of other women?
6. What barriers prevent women from using these services? Are they different <strong>for</strong> HIVpositive
women and other women?
7. Which women’s health issues need priority responses and what kinds of responses might
be appropriate? How can MPs, civil society organizations and others raise these issues in
parliament and other <strong>for</strong>a?
18 Chapter B: Planning and Preparation