Assessment of Community Empowerment Initiative in Promoting Population Health at Saudi Arabia: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Community empowerment occupies a prominent position in public health practices, it is aimed to work with the population to promote their health, and as noticed during the COVID-19 pandemic, working “with” population have become of great importance in improving their health. From this standpoint, the Saudi Ministry of Health launched the Community Empowerment Initiative (CEI). This study aimed to assess population satisfaction regarding CEI activities in Saudi Arabia. Methods: This is a descriptive, cross-sectional study. A total of 198 participants who met the inclusion criteria participated in the survey after receiving an anonymous online self-administered questionnaire which consists of two parts: sociodemographic characteristics and the organizational domains of the community empowerment activities. Results: About 40.9% of the respondents were between 31 and 35 years old, and most of them were females (74.7%). Regarding to level of eduction, over half of the respondents (62.6%) had a bachelor’s degree. Regarding domains of CEI activities, the overall satisfaction level shown in the results was 93.9%, creation of supportive environment domain had the highest satisfaction level with a weighted mean of 4.29 ± 0.45, while the community competence development domain had a moderate satisfaction level among participants with a weighted mean of 3.36 ± 0.79. Conclusion: Despite the high level of satisfaction in all CEI domains reported by the study participants, these results do not mean that the concept of community empowerment is familiar among the Saudi community. Significant effort is still required from the Ministry of Health and the concerned authorities to instill the concept of community empowerment among the Saudi population.