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Nutritional surveillance, as part of, or complementary to, the famine early warning system in Ethiopia, has been used to collect reports on local food security from community leaders using structured interviews. It is important to assess the extent to which this information reflects the food-related behaviour of the community. Information on various socio-economic variables related to nutrition was collected at the household and community level through interviews in western Shewa Province. The data was compared and generally the correspondence between the two was good. Information topics which might be missed using only the local leader, and ways to improve collection are discussed.

This report describes the work of two multi-disciplinary teams during June 1992 in Zambia who attempted to find solutions to malnutrition and vitamin A deficiency in the Luapula Valley. As well as identifying diet and food production patterns, the RRA exercise intended to find out more about the views of the local people and the constraints they faced. A variety of RRA techniques were used including semi-structured interviews and wealth ranking, and these showed that poorer groups, particularly female-headed households were more likely to experience food shortages during the year. It was also discovered that women tended to dominate subsistence farming activities, while men were more likely to be the providers of a cash income. A number of recommendations are made to improve household food security, and it is suggested that community-based nutritional surveillance would raise local awareness about malnutrition and its underlying causes.

RRA can be used as a tool for training development workers to address the issues of "gender and health at grassroots level". Four steps show how various RRA exercises were used for training purposes : 1. Analysis of Difference - trainees are asked to explain the differences in seasonal calendars drawn by separate groups of men and women in Sierra Leone. Their first response was to say the men's maps were simply "better". 2. Health versus Wealth - a problem priority matrix ranking exercise from Bangladesh shows how landless women were more concerned with income than health issues. 3. A Better Understanding - development workers learn to use RRA techniques to explore options in more depth with the community. 4. A Better Response - "the increased empathy with villagers" generated by these RRA activities has allowed workers to explore more sensitive health issues.

This paper opened an international conference on Rapid Assessment Procedures (RAP). The author describes some of the main themes emerging from a decade of RRA and RAP. It is claimed that RAP has "launched some social sciences on a path of methodological re-tooling". RAP is viewed as a new force changing the development planning process and development planning process and development activities at community level. Examples are given of both the powers and the pitfalls of the RAP technique. Two sets of risks are examined: 1) intrinsic - connected with accuracy; representativeness; cultural inappropriateness; subjectivity 2) extrinsic - arising from failing to give RAPs a proper place or weight within a research strategy. It is concluded that RAP techniques complement rather than replace conventional quantitative techniques.

PRA was conducted in Ambari village, Meghalaya. Importance of diseases was symbolised by stick length and pie diagrams. Recall was used to compare treatment strategies in 1920 and 1990. Seasonality was charted. A causal model was constructed which showed the link between a lack of safe drinking water and disease. A model of the causes of child mortality was built. Health and wealth ranking took place. Illustrations are included of each method.

Anthropological methods have been introduced into rapid assessment procedures (RAP) for a number of diseases and related health issues. This article discusses the suitability of the approach for health research in countries where tropical diseases are endemic. Adjustments to conventional methods are necessary, given the limited time in the field and the need to ensure the validity and reliability of data. Although rapid assessment has certain shortcomings and does not obviate the need for long-term studies, a mix of research methods, use of multi-disciplinary teams and attention to contradictions within the study population will produce valid data in a relatively short period.