Community Engagement and the Communication Response to Ebola

Storey, J. Douglas; Chitnis, Ketan; Obregon, Rafael; Garrison, Kama

doi:10.1080/10810730.2017.1283200

Cited by 14 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…The early days of epidemics and major health scares, such as Ebola and the anthrax scare, are examples of such situations. In the case of Ebola in particular, the early days of the epidemic were marked by a relatively chaotic and disorganized (communicative) response to the health emergency (Storey, Chitnis, Obregon, & Garrison, 2017), particularly in West Africa. Such a delayed response to the epidemic left immense scope for the informational vacuum to be filled by data that ranged from ludicrous to downright dangerous, with “prevention methods” eventually proving to be fatal (Neporent, 2014).…”

Section: The Nature Of Health-related Misinformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Misinformation About Health: A Review of Health Communication and Misinformation Scholarship

Krishna

Thompson

2019

American Behavioral Scientist

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As more people choose to get health information online, health-related topics continue to be the target of misinformation. From targeted misinformation campaigns about the safety of tobacco, the mainstreaming and subsequent adoption of scientifically flawed research about vaccines, to the misinformation-driven stigmatization of HIV, health communication as an academic discipline has been faced with the challenge of stemming the flow of misinformation and correcting individuals’ misinformed beliefs. To that end, scholars have devoted much time and effort to understand the antecedents and consequences of health-related misinformation, as well as strategies to correct misinformation and inoculate others from misinformation. In this essay, we review research on health-related misinformation, with a special emphasis on two major journals in the field, that is, Health Communication and the Journal of Health Communication, and interrogate the nature of health-related misinformation. We close this essay with a conceptualization of misinformed yet vocal health communicators, whom we term health misliterates.

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Section: The Nature Of Health-related Misinformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Misinformation About Health: A Review of Health Communication and Misinformation Scholarship

Krishna

Thompson

2019

American Behavioral Scientist

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“… 9 It is used as a parent notion with terms like communication, social mobilisation, community participation, community action and empowerment 10 with emphasis on the agency of community members or groups, considering them as active rather than passive participants. 11 12 Community engagement is seen as critical in many health initiatives, such as for communicable disease 10 and maternal and child health initiatives, 13 and more recently has been considered a fundamental component during outbreaks, largely arising during the 2014–2015 Ebola epidemic in West Africa.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community engagement for COVID-19 prevention and control: a rapid evidence synthesis

et al. 2020

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IntroductionCommunity engagement has been considered a fundamental component of past outbreaks, such as Ebola. However, there is concern over the lack of involvement of communities and ‘bottom-up’ approaches used within COVID-19 responses thus far. Identifying how community engagement approaches have been used in past epidemics may support more robust implementation within the COVID-19 response.MethodologyA rapid evidence review was conducted to identify how community engagement is used for infectious disease prevention and control during epidemics. Three databases were searched in addition to extensive snowballing for grey literature. Previous epidemics were limited to Ebola, Zika, SARS, Middle East respiratory syndromeand H1N1 since 2000. No restrictions were applied to study design or language.ResultsFrom 1112 references identified, 32 articles met our inclusion criteria, which detail 37 initiatives. Six main community engagement actors were identified: local leaders, community and faith-based organisations, community groups, health facility committees, individuals and key stakeholders. These worked on different functions: designing and planning, community entry and trust building, social and behaviour change communication, risk communication, surveillance and tracing, and logistics and administration.ConclusionCOVID-19’s global presence and social transmission pathways require social and community responses. This may be particularly important to reach marginalised populations and to support equity-informed responses. Aligning previous community engagement experience with current COVID-19 community-based strategy recommendations highlights how communities can play important and active roles in prevention and control. Countries worldwide are encouraged to assess existing community engagement structures and use community engagement approaches to support contextually specific, acceptable and appropriate COVID-19 prevention and control measures.

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“…83 Social mobilization and community engagement were critical in managing the Ebola outbreak in Guinea and Sierra Leone 84 and the fight against Ebola in Liberia. 85 Community interventions proved to be a successful and viable means of promoting cardiovascular health in several countries despite the challenges in implementation. 86 In Uganda, one document reports the impact of the CHW programme -the village health teams (VHTs), in promoting health issues, despite poor community support.…”

Section: Community Involvementmentioning

confidence: 99%

A systematic review of health communication strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa-2015-2022

Olaoye

Onyenankeya

2023

Health Promot Perspect

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Background: Health communication strategies have become critical in managing public health issues across sub-Saharan Africa. In the literature, health communication strategies have been well documented. The studies are often narrow, focusing on individual countries or specific health issues. No research documented and consolidated the health communication strategies across sub-Saharan Africa. This review attempts to catalogue prevalent health communication strategies, how the various countries have implemented these strategies and the barriers to effective health communication practices in Africa. Methods: We systematically reviewed existing literature on health communication strategies in sub-Saharan Africa to answer formulated questions. A Google search was performed in October 2022 with the keywords ‘health communication’, ‘strategies’, ‘promotion,’ ‘education,’ and ‘engagement,’ The data reported in this article included evidence published between 2013 and 2023. Selected documents were content analyzed, and significant sections were mapped against specific strategies/themes. These subsets of data were used to present the results and analysis. Results:The review indicates that different health communication strategies have been deployed across Africa. In some countries, specific strategies are used to tackle specific health issues, while a combination of strategies is used in others. In some countries, the strategies are unclear, and implementation is improvised, sometimes misapplied, or truncated by bureaucratic red tape and incompetence. The prevalent strategies are mainly those prescribed from outside with little input from the beneficiaries. Conclusion: The review suggests that using a holistic or multi-pronged health communication approach that is context-specific and participatory could attract more uptakes of health messages.

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Community Engagement and the Communication Response to Ebola

Cited by 14 publications

References 11 publications

Misinformation About Health: A Review of Health Communication and Misinformation Scholarship

Misinformation About Health: A Review of Health Communication and Misinformation Scholarship

Community engagement for COVID-19 prevention and control: a rapid evidence synthesis

A systematic review of health communication strategies in Sub-Saharan Africa-2015-2022

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