“A deep sense of fulfilment”: Bringing research findings back to communities
7 October 2026
As fieldwork for the research phase of RISE draws to a close, our community fieldworkers in Makassar have been meeting with residents to share and discuss our findings.
Over recent weeks, fieldworkers have visited homes across RISE communities to discuss results from the environmental and health sampling undertaken over many years.
Together, fieldworkers and residents explored reports on children’s health assessments, water quality testing and settlement-level insights, providing a broad picture of health and environmental conditions across their communities.
These reports bring together data collected since 2018, when Field Research Assistants Herlina and Mohammad Hatta first met, and have since become close with many residents participating in RISE. For them, discussing almost a decade’s worth of research findings has been deeply rewarding.
Herlina
The final household visits have given me a deep sense of fulfilment. Going from house to house, meeting community members, and explaining the children’s growth and development reports from 2018 to 2026, based on the results of their blood and faeces samples, has been truly meaningful. Some mothers have consulted with us about their children’s nutritional intake and how to help prevent malnutrition, while others have been happy to see their children’s Kato-Katz test results (findings used to detect and measure infections caused by intestinal worms) over the years. This activity has been especially memorable for me. After explaining the results and giving them a small gift, some of the mothers have hugged me and thanked me for being there and accompanying the community over the past eight years.
Mohammad Hatta
The final household visits have been emotional moments for many community members, as they mark the end of the field team sampling activities and regular interactions with the communities at their sites.
The community members have also been happy to receive the research findings and gifts from the RISE program. Through these visits, they have been given explanations of the environmental health conditions in their communities, as well as their children’s growth and development. We hope this information will serve as a useful reference for families to improve their health and wellbeing, as well as the conditions of their surrounding environment.
