Realist Lab

The Youth-centred Participatory Action project (YOPA) addresses the multifaceted challenges of physical inactivity and health inequalities through a unique participatory approach that values inclusivity and diversity. Sara Van Belle, Virginia Plezeguelo, and Bruno Marchal are doing a realist evaluation of the co-production processes in Denmark, the Netherlands, Nigeria, and South Africa.

The Afya-Tek project 'Preparing Afya-Tek for Government-Led Scale as part of the National Unified Community System' focused on the implementation and scaling up of people-centred digitised primary health care systems in Kibaha, Tanzania. It was funded by the Botnar Foundation, and Nandini Sarkar led the realist research components of the project.

The Action Leveraging Evidence to Reduce Perinatal Mortality and Morbidity in Sub-Saharan Africa (ALERT) project was a hospital maternity-based quality improvement and implementation science project in Benin, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda. The project was coordinated at Karolinska Institutet, and from ITM, Virginia Plezeguelo and Bruno Marchal led the work package Realist process evaluation.

The FWO senior postdoctoral fellowship of Sara Van Belle, Msichana/Chakti! (girlpower!) (2020-2025), explored the role of context and the use of case comparison in a study of accountability towards adolescents in sexual and reproductive health in urban informal settlements in India, Uganda, and Benin.