Community participation in rural health care.

Shortage of health professionals in rural health is a reality with which health care providers in Cameroon are battling and will continue for some time to come. In the meantime, while attempts are being made to solve the problem by increase in the training of health personnel there are alternative approaches which offer some solutions. One of these approaches is community participation. This can take several forms, some of which we shall describe in this paper. In the context of this paper we consider community health in its wide sense of disease prevention and disease treatment.