Interdisciplinary communication of infectious disease research – translating complex epidemiological findings into understandable messages for village chicken farmers in Myanmar

Improvement in animal disease control and prevention is dependent on several factors including farmers’ uptake of new technologies and skills, particularly in developing countries. Extension is the means by which information about these technologies and skills is delivered to farmers, in order that they can use this knowledge to improve farming practices and their quality of life. This implies a shift from traditional methods to new science-based methods of production. However, in many developing countries farmers are illiterate and unable to understand written outcomes of scientific research. This paper summarizes approaches to communicate epidemiological findings and reports on experiences obtained from a research project in Myanmar, where results from epidemiological field investigations and intervention studies were ‘translated’ in an understandable manner to village communities. Rural chicken farmers were the central focus of this extension work and simple and sustainable methods to improve the health and production of scavenging chicken flocks were promoted. Unique extension materials transformed scientific outputs published in international journals into clear pictographic messages comprehendible by villagers, while maintaining country-specific, traditional, religious and public perspectives. Benefits, difficulties and pitfalls in using extension methods to communicate advice on preventive veterinary medicine measures in different cross-cultural settings are discussed and guidelines on how to distribute epidemiological research results to illiterate farmers are provided. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/2193-1801-3-726) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.