SPEAR (Social science and Public Engagement Action Research) is a COVID-19 research project in Vietnam, Indonesia and Nepal. We aim to explore the experiences and impacts of COVID-19 for healthcare workers and vulnerable communities.
This project draws on anthropological and participatory engagement methods to explore the wider socio-cultural context of COVID-19, and its impact on health-related workers and vulnerable communities. Our findings will inform guidance to better support those populations:
- Guidelines to strengthen support for health workers
- Guidelines to improve access to public health measures for the most vulnerable populations
- Development of targeted and pertinent public health messaging
Our objectives are to identify and describe the experiences and perceptions of healthcare workers during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. We will also explore the impact of COVID-19 outbreaks on vulnerable communities, and identify misinformation circulating within these populations. This will enable us to design targeted evidence-based public engagement activities.
SPEAR is being conducted in four main sites in Vietnam (Hospital for Tropical Diseases (HTD) in Ho Chi Minh City, National Hospital for Tropical Diseases in Hanoi, and areas with ongoing research collaborations in Nam Dinh and Dak Lak provinces), in three provinces in Indonesia (DKI Jakarta, West Java and Nusa Tenggara Timur), and in the Patan Hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal.