Fake News & Trust in NTD Health Programs

21 October 2020 (2pm - 4pm GMT)

Together with the Global Schistosomiasis Alliance, the COR-NTD Secretariat is pleased to announce a pre-meeting session called, "Fake News & Trust in NTD Health Programs"

The session will take place on Wednesday, October 21, 2020 from 14:00-16:00 GMT / 15:00-17:00 BST / 10:00 - 12:00 EDT

This session aims to identify operational research questions to help define, through future studies, best practices in the engagement and health education of communities, and guidance for countering misinformation and empowering communities to identify fact from fiction, relative to NTD control programs.

Register here. Breakout group attendance will be capped at 50 participants per group. Please select your first and second choice breakout group topics below. Participants will be assigned to their preferred groups on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Session Description:

Research Challenge to be addressed: How can misinformation and loss of trust in health experts and services be mitigated and/or countered by improved community-led/supported NTD control programs? We will focus on challenges of establishing trusting relationships and enabling sustainable health education in communities to facilitate the rolling out of NTD control programs.

Session summary: This session highlights common causes of misinformation in communities about health-related topics in general, and NTD control measures in particular, and identifies operational research priorities for preventive and corrective strategies. The session includes specific and general case studies in NTD programs reported by researchers, national control programs, and partners, where misinformation influenced mistrust and low uptake of health services. Transferable lessons learned from rumour management during pandemics are shared. The COVID-19 health crisis has considerably fuelled misinformation campaigns, highlighting the need for strategies to build trust and sustain community participation in NTD control programs. The community response to NTD intervention programs might be weakened post-COVID times, given the dependency of control programs on health education and acceptance by the community. As such, NTD programs need guidance on how to mitigate misinformation and increase trust in health personnel and services within communities. Presentations on case studies around misinformation in the implementation of NTD-related health services will be given i.e:

Insights from schistosomiasis MDA in Guinea Conakry where mistrust in authorities and inadequate social mobilization hampered control programme efforts. By Mr. Cosmas Ndellejong (Lead Technical Advisor –schistosomiasis & STHs, Sightsavers)
Community-led health education of peers to counter loss of trust in health specialists and services? An episode from Bokito in rural Cameroon. By Dr Justin Komguep Nono (Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation of Cameroon)
Opposing misinformation, what we can learn from pandemic crises for long-term health system gains. By Dr Kuor Kumoji (Snr.Technical Advisor, Research & Evaluation, John Hopkins University Centre for Communication Programs).

Breakout sessions on the bases of mistrust in NTD health programs will then take place during this session i.e.:

Session1: Identifying a misinformed community (moderated by Cosmas Ndellejong)
Session 2: Mitigating misinformation in the community (moderated by Justin Nono)
Session 3: Ensuring the success of mitigation strategies against misinformation in the community (moderated by Kuor Kumoji)

With discussion around these talks and breakout sessions, this session aims to identify operational research questions to help define, through future studies, best practices in the engagement and health education of communities, and guidance for countering misinformation and empowering communities to identify fact from fiction, relative to NTD control programs.

Dr Justin Komguep Nono

Dr Nono is a Research Officer and Head of the Immunobiology of Helminth Infections Lab at the Ministry of Scientific Research and Innovation of Cameroon. With over 10 years of experience in Helminth research, his research focus is now on schistosomiasis. He co-chairs the Research Working Group of the Global Schistosomiasis Alliance and has been on WHO expert meetings for Schistosomiasis and STH. Justin is the co-founder of JRJ
Health, a new Cameroon-based NGO, active in the of evidence-based health promotion. He is a strong advocate of local capacity building in support of the transition towards locally-driven Health research to facilitate the control and elimination of NTDs globally.

Mr Ndellejong Cosmas Ejong

Mr Ndellejong Cosmas Ejong is the Global Technical Lead for Schistosomiasis and Soil Transmitted Helminthiasis at Sightsavers, with an advisory role in the DFID funded project; Accelerating the Sustainable Control and Elimination of Neglected Tropical Diseases (ASCEND). Prior to his current role, he served as NTD Programme Officer at the Cameroon Country Office and later got promoted to NTD Surveillance and M&E Manager for West and Central Africa.

Before joining Sightsavers in 2015, he worked for the Ministry of Public Health in Cameroon where he served as Monitoring and Evaluation Officer for the HIV and Malaria programmes. He was later appointed Regional NTD Coordinator for the South West Region in 2009.

Cosmas played a frontline role in Sightsavers’ global rating by GiveWell as one of the most effective deworming charities. He was a team member of the UK Aid Match Project, with his valuable input contributing to the project being awarded triple A (A+++) ratings twice by DFID.

He is a Cameroonian based in Calgary, Canada and holds an MSc. in Medical Microbiology and Parasitology and a Bachelor of Medical Laboratory Science from the University of Buea in Cameroon.

Dr Poppy Lamberton

Dr Lamberton is a Reader in Global Health at the University of Glasgow. She is Co-Chair of the Research Working Group for the Global Schistosomiasis Alliance. She has been on WHO, BMGF, consultancy and expert committee working groups for both schistosomiasis and
soil-transmitted helminthiasis (STH). She has researched NTDs for 18 years, with a strong focus on epidemiology and diagnostics, and long standing collaborations with teams in Uganda and Ghana. Her primary disease foci are schistosomiasis and onchocerciasis, alongside smaller projects on soiltransmitted helminths and food-borne trematodes. She leads an interdisciplinary research team using epidemiology, parasite genetics, immunology, economics, ethnography and engineering to target NTDs. Her research focuses on how best to improve treatment at an individual level and how to reduce NTD transmission at a community level.

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Fake News & Trust in NTD Health Programs

Session Description:

Registration

Watch the recording here