Community Resilience to Cholera Epidemics in Uganda: A Realist-informed review of Vulnerability and Intervention mechanisms

Description

This dataset supports a realist-informed literature review examining mechanisms that contribute to or reduce vulnerability to cholera outbreaks in Uganda. The data were extracted from documents, including peer-reviewed articles, grey literature, and program evaluations. A six-stage data synthesis approach was used, guided by realist evaluation (Pawson & Tilley, 1997) and resilience frameworks (Blanchet et al., 2017). The dataset includes: 1. An Excel matrix of 31 studies capturing Context–Mechanism–Outcome (CMO) patterns 2. Synthesized CMOC configurations 3. Thematic groupings of resilience and vulnerability mechanisms References and coding for absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities Data are provided in open formats (.xlsx and .docx), under a CC-BY 4.0 license, and assigned a persistent DOI through this repository. This dataset is intended to facilitate further research into community-led and systems-level responses to health epidemics in fragile settings. Keywords: Cholera, Resilience, Uganda, Realist Review, Community Engagement, WASH, CMO Framework, Public Health, Epidemics, Vulnerability Mechanisms

Steps to reproduce

1. Define Review Objectives Frame the main review question: “How do we build resilience to cholera outbreaks among local communities in Uganda?” 2. Establish guiding frameworks: Realist Evaluation (Pawson & Tilley, 1997) Health Systems Resilience Framework (Blanchet et al., 2017) 3.Conduct a Systematic Literature Search: Search databases: PubMed, EBSCO, Scopus, the Ministry of Health (Uganda) website, and Google for grey literature. Use search terms combining themes of: “Community,” “Resilience,” “Cholera,” “Uganda,” “Outbreak,” “Health Systems,” etc. No publication date restrictions. Limit to English-language and free-access articles. Apply Inclusion/Exclusion Criteria Include peer-reviewed articles or reports on cholera, resilience, health systems, and community engagement in Uganda or East Africa. Exclude articles with no full-text access, no focus on resilience, or unrelated geographies. 4. Screen and Select Studies 5. Import all citations into EndNote X9. 6. Remove duplicates. 7. Screen titles and abstracts (first pass by two reviewers; second pass full-text reading). Final sample: 31 eligible studies + 18 kinship literature sources. 8. Extract Data Using Realist Review Approach Develop a structured Excel matrix to capture: Author, Year, Country, Context, Mechanism, Outcome, Methods, and Themes. Extract Context–Mechanism–Outcome (CMO) patterns for each article. 9. Synthesize and Code CMOCs Organize CMO data into: Vulnerability mechanisms (V),Resilience mechanisms (R) Map CMOCs to absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities using the Blanchet framework. 10. Develop Theory of Change Group CMOCs by theme (e.g., WASH, CHWs, health infrastructure). Construct plausible causal pathways showing how community and externally supported mechanisms lead to resilience outcomes. 11.Review and Validate: Peer validation by the PARES Research Consortium and resilience experts. Iterate the dataset following internal feedback and consistency checks.

Institutions

• Makerere University

  Kampala, Kampala
• London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

  London, London

Categories

Funders

• National Institute for Health Research

  England, United Kingdom

  Grant ID: PB-PG-NIHR 133333

Licence