Meanings and practices of solidarity in global health: a qualitative investigation - study protocol

Solidarity in global health is often invoked as an ethical imperative to guide responses to global health challenges. Its meanings and practices across diverse contexts, however, remain under-explored. Deepening an understanding of how solidarity is conceptualised, enacted and perceived by a diverse array of actors within the global health ecosystem is crucial to advancing meaningful and measurable application of this commitment in global health.

This qualitative study uses interpretive research methodology to explore perspectives on solidarity among key global health stakeholders: community-level leaders in civil society organisations working on global health issues; research institute directors in the Global South; and individuals with experience of funding decision-making with major global health funding and agenda setting organisations ('global health influencers'). Data will be gathered through semi-structured interviews and analysed using inductive and deductive reflexive thematic analysis, to identify patterns and differences in how these global health stakeholders recognise and define solidarity or its absence in their day-to-day work, while remaining attentive to conceptual tensions, participant interpretations of solidarity that may be unfamiliar to our team, and our role as researchers in shaping what we register and emphasise as significant in our reporting of findings.

Ethics approval was obtained from the Western University Health Sciences Research Ethics Board (HSREB) in Ontario, Canada # 2024-123965-87873 and the Ethics Committee for the Humanities, University of Ghana # ECH 163/23-24 and University of Oxford, Oxford Tropical Research Ethics Committee (OxTREC) waiver dated 10 April 2024. Study results will be submitted for peer-reviewed publication. Results will also be summarised in an open access report and presented at various stakeholder meetings and in online webinars.

The final protocol was registered with Open Science Framework on 28 October 2023. View only link: https://osf.io/gryp5/?view_only=8baff435a35847f09a342408d38ee35b.