Building happier, healthier villages: a process evaluation of Sri Lanka’s Happy Village project
1 Regional Directorate of Health Services, Galle, Sri Lanka.
2 International Research Collaborative, School of Health and Clinical Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Australia.
3 Postgraduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka.
* Corresponding Author
Research Article
International Journal of Biological and Pharmaceutical Sciences Archive, 2026, 12(01), 177–184.
Article DOI: 10.53771/ijbpsa.2026.12.1.0085
Publication history:
Received on 24 July 2026; revised on 31 August 2026; accepted on 02 September 2026
Abstract:
communicable disease (NCD) risk factors and promote community empowerment and health literacy.
Methods: A mixed-methods process evaluation was conducted in the Katukurundu Watte Public Health Midwife area of Rathmalana Medical Officer of Health division. Relevance was assessed through document review and stakeholder interviews. Health literacy across seven NCD risk-factor areas was compared between member and non-member families using a validated questionnaire. Monthly household consumption of sugar, salt and oil was compared with baseline programme data and contemporaneous values from non-member families.
Results: The project aligned with national NCD policy, Sustainable Development Goal 3, the Ottawa Charter and the Shanghai Declaration. Awareness exceeded 80% for every assessed risk factor in both groups. Good health literacy did not differ significantly between member and non-member families (24% versus 20%; p=0.733). Among member families, reported monthly consumption declined from baseline by 22.2% for sugar, 25.0% for salt and 26.3% for oil, and current consumption was lower than among non-members. Qualitative findings identified weaknesses in volunteer selection, supervision, documentation, feedback, training and incentives.
Conclusion: Happy Village was relevant and showed encouraging dietary-practice changes, but no distinct health-literacy improvement was demonstrated. Stronger implementation fidelity, monitoring and volunteer support are needed before scale-up.
Keywords:
Process Evaluation; Health Promotion; Non-Communicable Diseases; Health Literacy; Community Empowerment; Sri Lanka
Full text article in PDF:
Copyright information:
Copyright © 2026 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article. This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Liscense 4.0