Strengthening user participation through health sector reform in Colombia: a study of institutional change and social representation

The challenge of achieving community participation as a component of health sector reform is especially great in low- and middle-income countries where there is limited experience of community participation in social policy making. This paper concentrates on the social representations of different actors at different levels of the health care system in Colombia that may hinder or enable effective implementation of the participatory policy. The study took place in Cali, Colombia and focused on two institutional mechanisms created by the state to channel citizen participation into the health sector, i.e. user associations and customer service offices. This is a case study with multiple sources of evidence using a combination of quantitative and qualitative social science methods. The analysis of respondents' representations revealed a range of practical concerns and considerable degree of scepticism among public and private sector institutions, consumer groups and individual citizens about user participation. Although participation in Colombia has been introduced on political, managerial and ethical grounds, this study has found that health care users do not yet have a meaningful seat around the table of decision-making bodies.