The purpose of project is to understand the relationship between ownership of healthcare in communities surrounding Boaco, Nicaragua and use that understanding to help Clinica Verde 1 provide more successful outreach and holistic care. To start, one main takeaway of this research is that Clinica Verde underscores the importance of the diversity of sources from which we obtain public health information.
There was no simple majority of sources that we receive information for diseases such as dengue, payment information, or private health services. While this at first might seem like an obstacle, this study suggests otherwise.
More than obtaining IRB approval, our research aimed to transcend the barriers that prescribe many standardized research projects. Much effort was made to integrate within the community through baseball, through talking, through listening to locals.
Accompaniment is just one tool in that toolbox that can be utilized to catalyze the delicate relationship of development practitioners and communities, and I believe that is absolutely essential to the dignity, respect, and outcome of inequality in developing countries. However, I do hope that this research can shine light on the importance of vision and focus on international development, especially in the medical sector.
Boaco, as does Nicaragua in general, provides universal healthcare. As investigators, the goal was to be able to combine past research experience to implement a short term, two month project that could potentially help frame outreach strategies by Clinica Verde. The following barrios of Herman Polmares, La Planta Alta, and San Miguel, were therefore chosen based upon convenience sampling since they surrounded the main location of our house and San Miguel is the biggest barrio in Boaco.
