Factors Influencing Community Engagement during Guinea Worm and Polio Eradication Endgames in Chad: Recommendations for "Last Mile" Programming.

ABSTRACT: Community engagement is a strategy commonly used in health and development programming. Many disease eradication programs engage with communities through different structures and mechanisms to detect, report, contain, and respond to the diseases they target. Qualitative operational research was conducted in a district of Chad co-endemic for both dracunculiasis (i.e., Guinea worm disease) and circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus to reveal factors influencing community engagement behavior in the context of eradication-related programming. Women and men from six communities and stakeholders from the local, district, and central levels were recruited to participate in focus group discussions and semi-structured in-depth interviews. A thematic analysis was performed to identify barriers and f

SUBMITTER: Delea MG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11376110 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature