Dara E Healy
“…community engagement can facilitate a more efficient use of resources, strengthen co-ordination and build local capacities…the call to include hard-to-reach populations, women leaders, people with disabilities and minorities in preparedness and response planning is getting louder. Understanding their perspectives and including them in intervention planning and delivery is critical to effectively addressing the complexity and diversity of health emergencies, disasters and humanitarian crises.”
– J Hope Corbin et al, Oxford University Press
COMMUNICATING during a serious health situation is never simple. Messages should be clear, timely and consistent. However, as dengue cases and deaths rise, the communication becomes more intense. Can placing more emphasis on community engagement help us to better navigate this latest national health challenge and keep it from escalating?
Meaningful engagement of communities is recognised as one of the most important ways to foster behaviour change and shift harmful social norms.
However, experts maintain that behaviour change is no longer the ultimate goal. Instead, communities should feel empowered to take control of the message and implement solutions themselves.
This is not really a new idea. Organisations have been working towards community resilience and capacity building for decades, especially in the area of disasters. Covid19 showed that local context is critical when sharing messages with communities and empowering them to determine what they need. Communicating for health is considered both a science and an art, incorporating evidence, theories and creativity for long-term results.
How is this relevant to what we in TT are now facing with dengue?
Communicating about health is now about encouraging a fundamental shift in culture. To a large extent, people already know what is essential to keep their surroundings clean, to avoid having exposed bodies of water and all the other practices.
I believe I became aware of the dangers of the
Aedes aegypti mosquito as far back as the 1970s. So how much more encouragement is needed at this point? The reality is that over time people become immune to certain messages, so new approaches become necessary.
Developing local partnerships and collaborations is one way. For instance, there may be people in the community who are unable to do the requisite cleaning, such as elderly people living on their own or people with disabilities. People can be encouraged to support these vulnerable groups to achieve the mandated standards of cleanliness.
Faith-based bodies and civil-society or non-governmental organisations already have deep bonds with their communities. They would serve as an invaluable source of simplifying technical information, motivation and support.
The business sector is crucial to any successful community engagement approach. Can they provide a space so that items can be recycled and then collected by the appropriate local government agency?
During our recent outreach to communities ab
