GCRF_NF225 - Improving community engagement with COVID-19 public health messages in hard to reach communities

巴基斯坦是世界上确诊冠状病毒病例最多的国家之一，对于一个严重依赖日常收入的人口来说，这可能会对健康和经济造成毁灭性的影响。重要的是确保社区理解公共卫生信息并采取行动，以限制冠状病毒进一步暴发的传播。在难以接触到的人群中，这可能很难实现，特别是在此类信息对其文化不敏感的情况下。以往的卫生危机突出表明，不信任和谣言可能削弱公众对科学证据的信心，并可能对应对努力构成危险的阻碍。我们的研究将探索巴基斯坦西北部农村社区在传播公共卫生和安全指导方面的文化障碍和促进者。我们将把重点放在白沙瓦附近的一个贫困砖窑社区，那里的家庭平均每天收入不到一美元，许多人获得清洁水的机会有限，获得教育和医疗保健的机会不平等。我们将与社区合作，制定既有效又符合当地利益的应对措施。除了找到促使社区遵循公共卫生建议的最佳方法外，社区还将决定支持和实施这些指导方针所需的物质资源，例如提供清洁的水供应。研究人员将与社区成员合作，制作一个工具包，帮助支持类似社区的沟通、社区参与和风险最小化，以应对未来的健康危机。

Pakistan has one of the highest number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the world, with potentially devastating health and economic implications for a population heavily dependent on daily incomes. It is important to ensure that communities understand and act on public health messages to limit the spread of further coronavirus outbreaks. This may be difficult to achieve in hard to reach populations, particularly when such messages are not sensitive to their culture. Previous health crises have highlighted that mistrust and rumour can under-mine public confidence in the scientific evidence and can be a dangerous hindrance to response efforts. Our study will explore the cultural barriers and facilitators to communicating public health and safety guidance in rural communities in North West Pakistan. We will focus on an impoverished brick-kiln community near Peshawar, where households have average income of less than one US dollar a day, many have limited access to clean water and unequal access to education and healthcare. We will work with the community to develop a response that is both effective and consistent with local interests. As well as finding out about best ways to engage the community to follow public health advice, the community will decide on the material resources needed to support and implement these guidelines, such as providing a clean water supply. Researchers will work with community members to produce a toolkit that will help to support communication, community engagement and risk minimisation in similar hard to reach communities for future health crises.