"Every Interaction is an Intervention": A Case Study Employing a Communication Complex Approach to Addressing Community Mental Health in a Low-Middle Income Country

Abstract

Historically, community engagement projects have been addressed from traditional approaches of looking at physical, mental, and social health separately instead of seeing how they are intertwined elements in making up a person’s whole health. Implying the systemic connection between all health and not just the absence of disease engages the World Health Organization’s definition of health. There is a need to shift to a complex approach known as communication complex that better supports complex environments like Low-Middle Income Countries. Communication complex is a meta-perspective that helps design a quantum complexity framework that engages the bioactive nature of communication and the systemic interconnection of everything. When communication complex is applied to the context of health, this is known as Communication for Whole Health which is an interventional framework. This approach informed the development of the following research questions: RQ1: How might researchers meld into a community to promote CWH? RQ2: How can the shifting trajectory from a culture of reactivity to one of receptivity be assessed? The methodological approach for this study is looking at a case study as an ethnographic participant observer within participatory action research to observe and understand where interventions have occurred within the community. This study found that researchers can meld into a community through a relational multi-interventional process by focusing on building healthy relationships with Communication for Whole Health practices. Further findings discovered that to assess how a culture shifts from a culture of reactivity to receptivity, this occurs through an evaluative approach that is not traditional of being done to an organization but rather observing how relationships change in conversation. In conclusion, using a Communication for Whole Health approach for community engagement that moves from object to relational provides a better framework to respond to a complex environment with minimal resources.