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Local tips, global impact: community-driven measures as avenues of promoting inclusion in the control of neglected tropical diseases: a case study in Kenya

BACKGROUND: Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) affect poor populations with little or no ‘political voice’ to influence control activities. While most NTDs have interventions that work, the biggest challenge remains in delivering targeted interventions to affected populations residing in areas exper...

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Autores principales: Ochola, Elizabeth A., Karanja, Diana M. S., Elliott, Susan J.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9356398/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35932055
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40249-022-01011-w
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author Ochola, Elizabeth A.
Karanja, Diana M. S.
Elliott, Susan J.
author_facet Ochola, Elizabeth A.
Karanja, Diana M. S.
Elliott, Susan J.
author_sort Ochola, Elizabeth A.
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) affect poor populations with little or no ‘political voice’ to influence control activities. While most NTDs have interventions that work, the biggest challenge remains in delivering targeted interventions to affected populations residing in areas experiencing weak health systems. Despite the upward development trends in most countries of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the healthcare worker to population ratio remains exceptionally low, with some areas not served at all; thus, there is a need to involve other personnel for school and community-based healthcare approaches. Nonetheless, the current community-based programs suffer from inconsistent community participation due to a lack of coordinated response, and an expanded intervention agenda that lacks context-specific solutions applicable to rural, urban, and marginalized areas. METHODS: This research investigated the capacity of local communities to address the burden of NTDs. Informed by the social theory of human capability, the research collected primary qualitative data by conducting key informant interviews and focus group discussions of people infected or affected by NTDs. The interview data were collected and transcribed verbatim for thematic analysis using Nvivo version 12. RESULTS: Our findings reveal, first, a need for intersectoral collaboration between governments and affected populations for inclusive and sustainable NTD solutions. Second, a ‘bottom-up’ approach that enhances capacity building, sensitization, and behaviour change for improved uptake of NTD interventions. Third, the enforcement of Public Health Legislative Acts that mandates the reporting and treatment of NTDs such as leprosy. Fourth, the establishment of support groups and counseling services to assist persons suffering from debilitating and permanent effects of NTDs. CONCLUSIONS: Our research demonstrates the importance of human agency in encouraging new forms of participation leading to the co-production of inclusive and sustainable solutions against NTDs. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40249-022-01011-w.
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spelling pubmed-93563982022-08-07 Local tips, global impact: community-driven measures as avenues of promoting inclusion in the control of neglected tropical diseases: a case study in Kenya Ochola, Elizabeth A. Karanja, Diana M. S. Elliott, Susan J. Infect Dis Poverty Case Study BACKGROUND: Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) affect poor populations with little or no ‘political voice’ to influence control activities. While most NTDs have interventions that work, the biggest challenge remains in delivering targeted interventions to affected populations residing in areas experiencing weak health systems. Despite the upward development trends in most countries of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), the healthcare worker to population ratio remains exceptionally low, with some areas not served at all; thus, there is a need to involve other personnel for school and community-based healthcare approaches. Nonetheless, the current community-based programs suffer from inconsistent community participation due to a lack of coordinated response, and an expanded intervention agenda that lacks context-specific solutions applicable to rural, urban, and marginalized areas. METHODS: This research investigated the capacity of local communities to address the burden of NTDs. Informed by the social theory of human capability, the research collected primary qualitative data by conducting key informant interviews and focus group discussions of people infected or affected by NTDs. The interview data were collected and transcribed verbatim for thematic analysis using Nvivo version 12. RESULTS: Our findings reveal, first, a need for intersectoral collaboration between governments and affected populations for inclusive and sustainable NTD solutions. Second, a ‘bottom-up’ approach that enhances capacity building, sensitization, and behaviour change for improved uptake of NTD interventions. Third, the enforcement of Public Health Legislative Acts that mandates the reporting and treatment of NTDs such as leprosy. Fourth, the establishment of support groups and counseling services to assist persons suffering from debilitating and permanent effects of NTDs. CONCLUSIONS: Our research demonstrates the importance of human agency in encouraging new forms of participation leading to the co-production of inclusive and sustainable solutions against NTDs. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40249-022-01011-w. BioMed Central 2022-08-05 /pmc/articles/PMC9356398/ /pubmed/35932055 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40249-022-01011-w Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Case Study
Ochola, Elizabeth A.
Karanja, Diana M. S.
Elliott, Susan J.
Local tips, global impact: community-driven measures as avenues of promoting inclusion in the control of neglected tropical diseases: a case study in Kenya
title Local tips, global impact: community-driven measures as avenues of promoting inclusion in the control of neglected tropical diseases: a case study in Kenya
title_full Local tips, global impact: community-driven measures as avenues of promoting inclusion in the control of neglected tropical diseases: a case study in Kenya
title_fullStr Local tips, global impact: community-driven measures as avenues of promoting inclusion in the control of neglected tropical diseases: a case study in Kenya
title_full_unstemmed Local tips, global impact: community-driven measures as avenues of promoting inclusion in the control of neglected tropical diseases: a case study in Kenya
title_short Local tips, global impact: community-driven measures as avenues of promoting inclusion in the control of neglected tropical diseases: a case study in Kenya
title_sort local tips, global impact: community-driven measures as avenues of promoting inclusion in the control of neglected tropical diseases: a case study in kenya
topic Case Study
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9356398/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35932055
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40249-022-01011-w
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