Lesson-110810-5

The involvement of community-based organizations and other civil society organizations is important to help researchers gain access to the study population. Community-based organizations and civil society organizations that implement projects and provide other forms of assistance to communities are generally known and trusted by those communities. On the other hand, researchers are often not known and the reasons for conducting research are not well understood by communities. By collaborating with community-based organizations or civil society organizations, researchers can more easily access individuals or households in communities to collect data. Researchers involved with the qualitative studies collaborated with some civil society organizations that facilitated data collection. In hindsight, these researchers opined that a more strategic approach to identifying civil society organizations working in communities where the study population lives and works would have been beneficial.