A preventive communicable disease model: a case study for remote tribal communities in Thailand

Abstract

The study aimed to describe a model of communicable disease control and prevention in remote areas. The model stemmed from a concept developed from two case studies comprising different social and cultural contexts. A qualitative randomized snowball technique was conducted for 16 participants by including in depth semi-structured interviews and nonparticipation observation was used to collect data combined with field notes. The data were collected, analyzed and synthesized based on qualitative research techniques using content analysis and grounded theory technique for model construction. The research findings showed that the model of preventive communicable diseases consisted of 2 important external and internal elements of the development process. The external elements included policy, cultural context, social support, team strength, communication, learning processes, proprietorship, participation, social capital and community strength. Additionally, the internal elements included 3 project phases of initiation, implementation and evaluation where strategies and activities related to each stage were employed. As the research findings indicated, the model could be applied to improve community health especially in a community where communicable diseases included villager’s health hazards. This entailed a concept for the development team to apply by increasing and decreasing the number of variables based on appropriate concepts matching the area and community being developed.