Ghosh U, Sen B, and Bose S (2019) Photo voice as a participatory approach to influence climate related health policy in the Sundarbans, The Lancet Planetary Health, Volume 3, Special Issue, S22, DOI: 10.1016/S2542-5196(19)30165-2
The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report highlights community-based strategies to drive effective and ecologically sustainable local adaptation strategies. A climate change hot spot, Sundarbans, India, needs collective action between communities and for local level health and non-health decision makers to find sustainable solutions to combat the impacts of climate change on child health.
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The FHS India team have produced a new film titled Children of an Uncertain Climate, based on an FHS study titled ‘Decoding Child Health Impact under Climate Crisis.’ This short film identifies the pathways by which Climate Change is impacting the child health in Indian Sundarbans – a climatically vulnerable setting.
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This key message brief shares learning from Future Health Systems partners’ experiences of working with traditional, primarily mainstream, media outlets publishing in print and online, as well as some television and radio organisations over 12 years. We hope it offers some helpful reflections for those who are currently or considering working with the media.
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The Sundarbans, the mangrove forest delta shared both by India and Bangladesh, is among the worst hit regions of climate change in the world. Even though food insecurities due to climate change are felt across the region, the distribution of vulnerabilities is largely uneven depending upon existing climatic and social intersections.
Within the context of socio-cultural and political dynamics, and rapid globalization, efforts to respond to, mitigate, or adapt to climate change needs to address issues of equity and social justice, posing both challenges and opportunities.
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In Bangladesh and India, informal healthcare providers (IHPs) have long been part of the countries’ health systems. However, formal recognition of their existence is sensitive, partly due to resistance and concern from professional health bodies. Research by Future Health Systems (FHS) partners ICDDR,B and IIHMR has been instrumental in bringing the issues to discussion tables. Consequently, stakeholders have begun to recognize and work with IHPs – something previously unheard of.
World-wide, women experience a higher burden of visual impairments than men, and this increases with age. This short film from the FHS India team - based on research by IIHMR University, FHS and RinGs - highlights the gendered dimension of seeking eye health care in the Indian Sundarbans - a climatically vulnerable setting.
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Ghosh U, Bose S, Bramhachari R (2017) Geo-climatically Vulnerable Sundarbans: A social network analysis of mother’s social ties and child care, International Journal for Population, Development and Reproductive Health, Volume 1, Issue 1, pp. 27 - 41
Present paper explores mother's individual and system level social ties to support in taking care of children in resource scarce setting of the Indian Sundarbans. Climatic uncertainties resulted in male out-migration in search of alternative livelihoods leading towards female-headed households. Women now face triple burden of works – livelihood, household chores and childcare. Hence it is pertinent to know how and to what extent social ties support child care in female headed households in comparison to male headed households.
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This Future Health Systems research brief examines the importance of social ties to mothers whose husbands, because of work, remain absent from the household for prolonged periods of time.
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Ghosh U, Bose S, Bramhachari R and Mandal S (2016) Expressing collective voices on children’s health: photovoice exploration with mothers of young children from the Indian Sundarbans, BMC Health Services Research, 16:1866, DOI: 10.1186/s12913-016-1866-8
The Indian Sundarbans is marked by inhospitable terrain and frequent climatic shocks which jointly hinder access to health care. Community members, and women in particular, have few means to communicate their concerns to local decision makers. Photovoice is one way in which communities can raise their local health challenges with decision makers. This study unlocks mothers’ voices on the determinants of their children’s health to inform local level decision-making on child health issues in the Indian Sundarbans.
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The objective of this brief is to introduce the Photovoice method, highlight how it helped capture the voices of mothers in the Sundarbans, and demonstrate how the method can bridge the gap between communities and local decision-makers.
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In Future Health Systems, we focused on communities as active service delivery participants across a wide variety of contexts. In this brief, we reflect on the process of unlocking community capabilities, the key actors involved, and the productive tensions within community partnerships forged to build more responsive, resilient and equitable health systems.
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Working with several women’s groups in the Sundarbans, FHS provided a range of trainings – on how to use digital cameras, how to approach a picture subject, and getting people’s consent – to study participants. In turn, the participants used the cameras provided to them to capture images that explain how a changing climate affects their daily livelihoods, barriers that exist to accessing health services, and ways that locals are adapting to these challenges.
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এফ.এইচ.এস.- ইন্ডিয়া ২০০৯ সাল থেকেই সুন্দরবনের মানুষের স্বাস্থ্যের ওপর গবেষণার কাজ চালাচ্ছে। বর্তমানে (২০১০ সাল থেকে) এফ.এইচ.এস. শিশু স্বাস্থ্যের ওপর বেশি গুরুত্ব দিয়ে কাজ করছে। সম্প্রতি সুন্দরবনের পাথরপ্রতিমা ব্লকে শিশু -স্বাস্থ্যের ওপর একটি সমীক্ষা করা হয়েছে। বর্তমান রিপোর্টটিতে এলাকার শিশু স্বাস্থ্যের বিভিন্ন দিক ও তার বর্তমান অবস্থা, স্বাস্থ্য পরিষেবার ক্ষেত্রে ফাঁকফোকর গুলি ও সম্ভাব্য সমাধানসূত্র তুলে ধরার চেষ্টা করা হয়েছে। এফ.এইচ.এস.- ইন্ডিয়ার এই গবেষণাটি আরও বেশি করে সুন্দরবনের মানুষের মাঝে পৌঁছে দেওয়ার জন্য এই বাংলা সংস্করণটি প্রকাশিত হল।
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The health situation of children in the Indian Sundarbans couldn’t be more precarious. Facing chronic malnutrition as well as a high prevalence of easily preventable but highly communicable diseases, access for children to health services in the region is complicated by the rough terrain and the winding tidal rivers of the deltaic region.The key question is, what can be done to improve the health situation of children in the Sundarbans? This briefing answers that question by outlining the several methodologies employed in the study. It then considers both the demand and supply sides for child-centred health services in the block. It concludes with recommendations for beginning to repair the fractured health system there.
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The present report focuses on one of the more vulnerable blocks of the Sundarbans in West Bengal, India -- namely Patharpratima -- as a representative block of the Sundarbans. To understand the root of the problem, the study takes a child health right approach and attempts to understand whether and to what extent the rights are protected, especially in climatically challenged areas such as the Sundarbans. In a nutshell, this report generates research evidence on the barriers to service delivery and access of health care services for children and endeavours to find out ways to make the system more effective in the Sundarbans.
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