title: Scenario planning for community development in Vietnam: a new tool for integrated health approaches?
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Like many countries in Southeast Asia, Vietnam's rapid population and economic growth has met challenges in infrastructure development, especially sanitation in rural areas.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  As an entry point, we developed scenario planning as an action-research tool in a peri-urban community to identify first steps towards improving their complex sanitation problem and to, systemically, address emerging/re-emerging infectious diseases, as these are commonly linked to unsafe water and inadequate sanitation conditions. As an integrated approach, the process of constructing scenarios allowed us to work across sectors and stakeholders to incorporate this knowledge into a common vision.
  
  
  METHODS
  We conducted focus group discussions to identify and rank driving forces, orally constructed scenarios for the most uncertain drivers, discussed scenario implications and options, and examined the overall process for usefulness and sustainability. During a one-month scoping phase and in between focus group meetings, we carried out household visits which helped us understand the context of data and gather feedback from participants outside of the formal data collection process. Recorded results from these activities were used to develop subsequent tools.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The research process gave us insights into how to adapt the scenario planning tool to identify alternative options. This involved choosing boundary partners, negotiating priorities, drawing out participant learning through self-assessment of our process (a prerequisite for changing mental models and thus achieving outcomes), and understanding how conveyed messages may reinforce the status quo. These insights showed the importance of examining research results beyond outputs and outcomes, namely through process.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Public Health and Ecosystem Research, Hanoi School of Public Health, Hanoi, Vietnam; vivivinguyen@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Vi
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Nguyen
authors.affiliation: Centre for Public Health and Ecosystem Research, Hanoi School of Public Health, Hanoi, Vietnam; Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Socinstrasse, Basel, Switzerland, and Food Safety and Zoonoses Program, International Livestock Research Institute, Hanoi, Vietnam; Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Sandec - Department of Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries, Dübendorf, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Hung
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nguyen-Viet
authors.affiliation: Centre for Public Health and Ecosystem Research, Hanoi School of Public Health, Hanoi, Vietnam.
authors.forename: Phuc
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Pham-Duc
authors.affiliation: Infrastructure Department, Embassy of the European Union in Chad/European Union Delegation in Chad, N'Djamena, Chad.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wiese
mesh_terms: D019058:Community Networks / Q000458:organization & administration*; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000517:prevention & control; D005260:Female; D017144:Focus Groups; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010934:Planning Techniques; D011204:Poverty Areas; D012424:Rural Population; D012499:Sanitation; D012939:Social Planning; D013383:Suburban Population; D014744:Vietnam
keywords: Vietnam; development; integrated approaches; planning; sanitation; scenarios; tools