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Drama as a community engagement strategy for malaria in rural Cambodia.

ABSTRACT: Background: Countries in Southeast Asia are working to eliminate multidrug-resistant falciparum malaria, a major cause of mortality in tropical regions. Malaria is declining but transmission persists in many rural areas and among forest workers and isolated populations. In these remote communities, conventional health services and education are limited. Mobilising and educating these populations require new approaches as many people are illiterate and do not attend village meetings. This article describes a qualitative study to assess the feasibility of a drama project as a community engagement strategy. Methods: A drama project was conducted in twenty villages in Cambodia with three key messages: to use insecticide-treated bednets and repellents, to get early diagnosis and treatment, and to learn about risks of forest-acquired malaria. Qualitative interviews were conducted with the drama team members, village malaria workers, local health staffs and villagers, to explore the feasibility of using drama to engage the community and the associated challenges. Results: 29 people were interviewed, which included 18 semi-structured interviews and one focus group discussion. Analysis of the interviews resulted in development of the following seven themes: i) exposure to malaria and engagement activities, ii) readiness and barriers to participation, iii) understanding and learning about malaria using drama, iv) entertainment value and engagement method preferences, v) challenges to community engagement, vi) future participation and vii) sustainability. The event saw a very positive response, with an encouraging average participation rate of 66%. The project faced several challenges including logistic problems, rescheduling due to raining season, and time- and budget-constraints. Conclusions: Our evaluation demonstrated that the drama project was feasible in promoting awareness and understanding of malaria prevention and control. Audience members perceived drama as entertaining and as the preferred choice of engagement activity. Participatory drama could be considered as part of the community engagement for malaria elimination.

SUBMITTER: Lim R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5645711 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Background: Mental health is slowly gaining global significance as a key health issue, yet the stigma attached to psychosis is still a major problem. There has been little in-depth exploration of sustainable, cost-effective, and replicable community engagement strategies that address mental health myths and stigma, which are major barriers to early health-seeking behaviours. In low-income countries such as Zimbabwe, cultural and spiritual beliefs are at the centre of most mental health explanatory models, perpetuating an environment where mental health conversations are a cultural taboo. Mental health interventions should be accompanied by creative, evidence-based community engagement, ensuring that interventions are suitable for local settings and giving communities a voice in directing their health initiatives. Methods: Z Factor aimed to engage young adults and their support networks across a variety of socioeconomic groups in a rural district of Zimbabwe through their participation in an inter-ward five-staged drama competition. The focus was on psychosis, with subcategories of initial presentation/detection, seeking help/pathway to care, and the road to recovery/treatment. Each drama group's composition included a young adult and a typical support network seeking treatment from the service provider of choice. Dramas were to act as discussion starters, paving the way toward broader and deeper psychosis treatment discussions among rural communities and gaining insight into service user expectations from health research. Conclusions: Outcomes of the pilot community engagement project will be instrumental in improving understanding community perceptions about psychosis treatment and recovery in rural Zimbabwe and increasing community awareness about psychosis, as well as paving the way for initiating service provider collaboration to promote early detection and encouraging early health-seeking behaviours. The above outcomes will also inform the design of models for more responsive community and public engagement initiatives in similar low resource settings in Zimbabwe and beyond.

Project description:BackgroundOpen streets events, where roads are temporarily closed to motorized vehicles, can provide safe spaces for physical activity (PA) and become sustainable community infrastructure. Since 2016, we have collaborated with a rural community to implement an open streets event, named ciclovía. In 2019, ciclovía was adopted as a community-wide program. This paper describes the process of building and progressing a ciclovía from a research intervention to a community-adopted program and participation of a rural community in ciclovía.MethodsWe used community-based participatory research to foster bidirectional learning on how to optimize the content and implementation of ciclovía to be feasible and acceptable for rural communities. The community-academic partnership focused on: 1) understanding the science of ciclovía; 2) learning the implementation process; 3) creating tools to facilitate planning, implementation, and evaluation of ciclovía; and 4) developing transition steps from a research intervention to a community-adopted program.ResultsThe progression of the research intervention to community adoption spanned 2 years. First, the partnership met quarterly to discuss the science of ciclovía, its utility, and its adaptation for rural communities. Second, the partnership studied processes that facilitated ciclovía implementation. Third, the partnership created the ciclovía planning guide and tools for communities to establish their own ciclovía. The guide included forming a planning committee, setting meeting and communication plans, marketing and promotion, and selecting evaluation tools. Fourth, the transition steps from research intervention to community adoption included creating roles and responsibilities, implementing ciclovía using the planning guide, and convening listening sessions for improvement on implementation. Community attendance at ciclovía doubled from 189 individuals (126 children and 63 adults) when it was a research intervention to 394 individuals (277 children and 117 adults) when it was a community program.ConclusionsThe progression from a research intervention to a community-adopted program encompasses multiple steps that involve bidirectional learning and partnership with the community. Lessons learned from this study are integrated into a disseminatable ciclovía planning guide.

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Drama as a community engagement strategy for malaria in rural Cambodia.

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