As part of a ICMR funded project entitled “Mapping the health-seeking pathway and sexuality problems in migrants of metropolitan regions” a 2-day workshop on Community Based Participatory Approaches to map the health seeking pathway among migrants of metropolitan regions was held on 1st and 2nd July, 2024 at AIIMS Bibinagar, Hyderabad Metropolitan Development Area. Prof B.R. Shamanna, School of Medical Sciences and Dr’s Appa Rao Tamminaina and Alok Kumar Pandey from Department of Anthropology, School of Social Sciences were the expert faculty. Teams from 3 project metropolitan locations of Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai numbering 25 participated in the training.

The purpose of this 2-day workshop was to train researchers in community based participatory research approaches addressing the adult and adolescent health problems associated with migrants to metropolitan cities in India.

Predominantly, sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are a variety of clinical syndromes caused by pathogens that can be acquired and transmitted through sexual contact. It remains a major public health problem at global level. Migrants specifically are considered the bridge population for the transmission of STIs and HIV because of high-risk behaviour. Various studies on migrants throughout the world have shown that the health seeking behaviour for STIs may be associated with various challenges like lack of education, cultural and gender differences, with testing for HIV and difficulty in decision making. This project looks at studying and understanding health seeking pathways and barriers faced by migrants especially in urban India for development of more comprehensive and accessible health services for migrants. It is also important to map the health seeking pathway as well as the challenges among migrants by a community led approach which shall better help in bridging the gap. The study sites included Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai with the scope to expand to other cities in due course based on the learning from this project.

The UoH trainers gave an overview in terms of:

  • Various types of community led participatory approaches and their need in health.
  • Understanding the PLA tools utilised and their techniques
  • Doing action planning and analysis

The National Principal Investigator is Dr. Rashmi Kundapur, Additional Professor, AIIMS Bibinagar and the Hyderabad site and workshop coordinator was Dr. Meely Panda, Assistant Professor, Community & Family Medicine, AIIMS, Bibinagar.

The workshop also provided an opportunity to meet with the senior management at AIIMS Bibinagar to initiate a formal institution to institution partnership discussion between UoH and AIIMS, Bibinagar. The UoH team met with CEO and Director, Prof Vikas Bhatia, Dean Research, Prof Sangeeta Sampath and Senior faculty from Community and Family Medicine and this was facilitated by Dr. Bipin Varghese, Deputy Director Administration, AIIMS – Hyderabad.