Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40629314›Full record

ArticleBMC health services research2025

How communitization begets and endures sarkarikaran: a witnessed history of community action for health in India's national rural health mission.

Devaki Nambiar, Neymat Chadha

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in BMC health services research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
0citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

0 citing papers in PubMed.

No citing paper in PubMed yet.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Devaki NambiarGeorge Institute for Global Health, 308 Elegance Tower, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi, 110025, India. dnambiar@georgeinstitute.org.in.ORCID http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5682-6109
Neymat ChadhaGeorge Institute for Global Health, 308 Elegance Tower, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi, 110025, India.

Funding

Wellcome Trust DBT India Alliance IA/CPHS/23/1/507013
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The legacy of Community Action for Health (CAH) in India traces back to the global momentum for primary health care galvanized by the Alma Ata Declaration and post-World War II social movements. In 2024, the World Health Assembly endorsed a resolution on institutionalising CAH and other forms of social participation as a core pillar of health reform. The Indian experience of institutionalising CAH under its erstwhile National Rural Health Mission offers an example of sustained national-scale implementations of CAH globally, yet its lessons-both successes and blind spots-remain under-analysed. This paper aims to fill that gap by critically examining the trajectory of CAH since 2005 and exploring its implications for the operationalization of the SPH Resolution. In 2021, two virtual Witness Seminars and four in-depth interviews were conducted with leaders of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), program implementers, and policy decision-makers involved in the institutionalization of Community Action for Health (CAH) under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). Participants included. Seminars and interviews explored key events, actors, processes, and contextual factors that shaped the evolution of CAH. All sessions were fully transcribed and analysed using ATLAS.ti (version 22). Our analysis of the evolution of CAH in India suggests four phases - leading to and flowing away from governmentality. While initially communitization involved collaborative dialogue, debate and system redesign, pilots of CAH rolled out across Indian states with varying strategies, ownership, and stakeholdership. Roles of community began to shift into that of agents and providers as part of "sarkarikaran" or governmentalization of community processes. A final phase suggests that like flowing water, CAH may continue to reconfigure state-society relations in the wake of emerging challenges, less formalised, more embedded interactions. This suggests that institutionalising, standardizing and centralising CAH is neither lasting, nor desirable.

Indexed as

Community ParticipationRural Health ServicesHumansIndiaInterviews as TopicCommunity action for health (CAH)Community participationHealth policy and systems research (HPSR)IndiaNational health mission (NHM)Oral historyWitness seminar

Identifiers

PMID40629314
PMCPMC12235939

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.