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Role of Religious Leaders in COVID-19 Prevention: A Community-Level Prevention Model in Sri Lanka

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all countries irrespective of their state of development. In countries with traditional societies, religious leaders have been acknowledged as key stakeholders in community engagement activities, including disease prevention. A community-level prevention model was...

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Autores principales: Wijesinghe, Millawage Supun Dilara, Ariyaratne, Vinya S., Gunawardana, Balangoda Muhamdiramlage Indika, Rajapaksha, R. M. Nayani Umesha, Weerasinghe, W. M. Prasad Chathuranga, Gomez, Praveen, Chandraratna, Sahani, Suveendran, Thirupathy, Karunapema, R. P. Palitha
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8609254/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34812996
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10943-021-01463-8
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author Wijesinghe, Millawage Supun Dilara
Ariyaratne, Vinya S.
Gunawardana, Balangoda Muhamdiramlage Indika
Rajapaksha, R. M. Nayani Umesha
Weerasinghe, W. M. Prasad Chathuranga
Gomez, Praveen
Chandraratna, Sahani
Suveendran, Thirupathy
Karunapema, R. P. Palitha
author_facet Wijesinghe, Millawage Supun Dilara
Ariyaratne, Vinya S.
Gunawardana, Balangoda Muhamdiramlage Indika
Rajapaksha, R. M. Nayani Umesha
Weerasinghe, W. M. Prasad Chathuranga
Gomez, Praveen
Chandraratna, Sahani
Suveendran, Thirupathy
Karunapema, R. P. Palitha
author_sort Wijesinghe, Millawage Supun Dilara
collection PubMed
description The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all countries irrespective of their state of development. In countries with traditional societies, religious leaders have been acknowledged as key stakeholders in community engagement activities, including disease prevention. A community-level prevention model was established in 2020 by the Health Promotion Bureau (HPB), Sri Lanka, which incorporated mobilisation of the clergy to support the prevention and response schemes to COVID-19 with non-governmental stakeholders. This model was part of a more extensive community engagement network established by the HPB in cooperation with the country offices for WHO and UNICEF. Building trust, empowering behavioural traits applicable to minimise risks from COVID-19, leadership and coordination, message dissemination, addressing stigma and discrimination, supporting testing procedures, contact tracing activities and vaccination, building community resilience, spiritual and psychosocial support, and welfare provision are some of the useful factors that were identified in the model. Furthermore, a much broader and holistic approach is needed to focus on health behaviours and social and cultural aspects in a multi-faceted nature. This paper highlights a novel COVID-19 prevention model with active involvement of religious leaders that can be implemented in low resource settings. Our experience from Sri Lanka demonstrates the feasibility of implementing this model to mitigate the disastrous situation following the COVID-19 outbreak.
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spelling pubmed-86092542021-11-23 Role of Religious Leaders in COVID-19 Prevention: A Community-Level Prevention Model in Sri Lanka Wijesinghe, Millawage Supun Dilara Ariyaratne, Vinya S. Gunawardana, Balangoda Muhamdiramlage Indika Rajapaksha, R. M. Nayani Umesha Weerasinghe, W. M. Prasad Chathuranga Gomez, Praveen Chandraratna, Sahani Suveendran, Thirupathy Karunapema, R. P. Palitha J Relig Health Original Paper The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all countries irrespective of their state of development. In countries with traditional societies, religious leaders have been acknowledged as key stakeholders in community engagement activities, including disease prevention. A community-level prevention model was established in 2020 by the Health Promotion Bureau (HPB), Sri Lanka, which incorporated mobilisation of the clergy to support the prevention and response schemes to COVID-19 with non-governmental stakeholders. This model was part of a more extensive community engagement network established by the HPB in cooperation with the country offices for WHO and UNICEF. Building trust, empowering behavioural traits applicable to minimise risks from COVID-19, leadership and coordination, message dissemination, addressing stigma and discrimination, supporting testing procedures, contact tracing activities and vaccination, building community resilience, spiritual and psychosocial support, and welfare provision are some of the useful factors that were identified in the model. Furthermore, a much broader and holistic approach is needed to focus on health behaviours and social and cultural aspects in a multi-faceted nature. This paper highlights a novel COVID-19 prevention model with active involvement of religious leaders that can be implemented in low resource settings. Our experience from Sri Lanka demonstrates the feasibility of implementing this model to mitigate the disastrous situation following the COVID-19 outbreak. Springer US 2021-11-23 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC8609254/ /pubmed/34812996 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10943-021-01463-8 Text en © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021 This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.
spellingShingle Original Paper
Wijesinghe, Millawage Supun Dilara
Ariyaratne, Vinya S.
Gunawardana, Balangoda Muhamdiramlage Indika
Rajapaksha, R. M. Nayani Umesha
Weerasinghe, W. M. Prasad Chathuranga
Gomez, Praveen
Chandraratna, Sahani
Suveendran, Thirupathy
Karunapema, R. P. Palitha
Role of Religious Leaders in COVID-19 Prevention: A Community-Level Prevention Model in Sri Lanka
title Role of Religious Leaders in COVID-19 Prevention: A Community-Level Prevention Model in Sri Lanka
title_full Role of Religious Leaders in COVID-19 Prevention: A Community-Level Prevention Model in Sri Lanka
title_fullStr Role of Religious Leaders in COVID-19 Prevention: A Community-Level Prevention Model in Sri Lanka
title_full_unstemmed Role of Religious Leaders in COVID-19 Prevention: A Community-Level Prevention Model in Sri Lanka
title_short Role of Religious Leaders in COVID-19 Prevention: A Community-Level Prevention Model in Sri Lanka
title_sort role of religious leaders in covid-19 prevention: a community-level prevention model in sri lanka
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8609254/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34812996
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10943-021-01463-8
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