The Drum Beat 786 - Learning from Polio for COVID-19 Action

• 1.IDEAS TO ACCELERATE ACTION
  Word of Mouth: Learning from Polio Communication and Community Engagement Initiatives [Jul 2018]The success of the response to COVID-19 depends on the engagement and cooperation of communities in behaviour that is very costly to societies and families. Everything from economic wellbeing to religious, social, and cultural practise will be affected. This report brings together lessons from the polio experience in the areas of social mobilisation, norms and culture, community-based surveillance, use of data to drive programme decisions, and the operational management of large-scale health programmes. It is the result of multiple organisations working together to share insights and distil lessons learned based on years of direct programming experience.
   
• 2.LESSONS FROM INDIA
  Influencing Change: Documentation of CORE Group's Engagement in India's Polio Eradication Programme [May 2019]Central to maintaining the physical distancing and hygiene behaviours required to slow the pandemic is community support and understanding. This book from the CORE Group Polio Project (CGPP) in India details strategies for engaging communities through social mobilisation. It explains the importance of building partnerships between government and civil society, creating innovative activities and materials, empowering women, developing networks of community and religious influencers, involving children, and engaging mobile and vulnerable populations.
   
• 3.SOCIAL and (small p) pOLITICAL
  The Art of Survival: The Polio Virus Continues to Exploit Human Frailties - Seventeenth Report of the Independent Monitoring Board of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative [Nov 2019]Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the GPEI was facing major challenges, with worsening outbreaks of wild poliovirus in Afghanistan and Pakistan and of vaccine-derived poliovirus in multiple other countries. It is worth remembering that the Independent Monitoring Board of the GPEI had warned: "The political, social, environmental, and managerial influences preventing polio eradication in the three remaining polio endemic countries are deep and profound." This report provides an overview of those issues; while it focuses on the polio programme, those responding to COVID-19 will encounter many of the same issues. Having a good picture of what the polio programme has struggled with can help guide the COVID-19 response
   
• 4.COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
  Community Engagement, Routine Immunization, and the Polio Legacy in Northern Nigeria
  by Anne McArthur-Lloyd, Andrew McKenzie, Sally E. Findley, Cathy Green, and Fatima Adamu, Jul 2016The need to build genuine and sustainable community support for difficult forms of behaviour change is central to the COVID-19 response. Containing and controlling infection will require widespread adherence to policies of distancing and hygiene over an indeterminate amount of time. This paper looks at the importance of building communitywide social approval for behaviour change, using a whole-community approach, and building community capacity and cohesion for long-term ownership and sustainability. It also explores how these lessons are a legacy for other health priorities that require sustained behaviour change.
   

• See also:
  Post-Crisis Communication: The Case of Polio and Vaccines - The Drum Beat 775
  Community Engagement for Polio Action - The Drum Beat 755
  

• 5.SOCIAL MOBILISATION
  Mobilize to Vaccinate: Lessons Learned from Social Mobilization for Immunization in Low and Middle-Income Countries
  by Mohamed F. Jalloh, Elisabeth Wilhelm, Neetu Abad, and Dimitri Prybylski, Oct 2019The ability to mobilise communities in support of health initiatives such as vaccination has been understood (though not always implemented) for many years. While the COVID-19 response is not presently focused on vaccination, it is about adopting and sustaining health behaviours and will at some point shift when a vaccine is developed. This paper from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) explains lessons learned, critically examines challenges faced when implementing social mobilisation for immunisation in low- and middle-income countries, and offers practical recommendations.
   
• 6.RUMOUR TRACKING
  Systematic Scoping Review on Social Media Monitoring Methods and Interventions Relating to Vaccine Hesitancy [Mar 2020]There are already rumours and misinformation emerging around COVID-19 - that it is being spread by G5 mobile networks, that it was brought to China by the United States military, and many other unsubstantiated claims related to prevention, diagnosis, and treatment. In order to maintain public confidence and respond to rumours quickly and effectively, social media needs to be monitored systematically. Building on experience dealing with vaccine hesitancy, an issue that polio has faced for many years, this review from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) provides insight into the role social media play in vaccine decision-making, the type of information that social media users are exposed to, and the way in which this information is spread and shared across the world.
   
• 7.RESPONDING TO FAKE NEWS
  Discourse Strategies of Fake News in the Anti-vax Campaign
  by Stefania Maci, Nov 2019Responding to mis- and dis-information on COVID-19 will require strong knowledge of the methods and approaches used by anti-vaxxers and others over the past several decades. The combining of misrepresented or pseudoscientific fact with emotion has been central to the power of 'fake news' on vaccination and, as noted above, is already emerging in relation to COVID-19. This paper looks at how misinformation is constructed and spread on online platforms by analysing fake news discursive dynamics and strategies to better understand why this type of information is influential and how to respond in ways that build trust in accurate sources.
   
• 8.RADIO
  How Has Media Programming Supported Polio Eradication?
  by Sanjib Saha, Oct 2018Maintaining a strong relationship with media together with clear and consistent messaging that is perceived to be transparent and trustworthy is central to dealing with a health crisis that requires considerable sacrifice over extended periods of time. This process takes place in part through official news and briefings, but some of it will also need to happen through interactive broadcasting and entertainment. This analysis looks at 3 examples of BBC Media Action work on radio programming for polio eradication in Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Somalia.
   
• 9.VIRTUAL DIALOGUE
  Two-Way Radio: Beliefs and Practices of Somali Citizens Concerning Immunisation [Oct 2017]Physical distancing calls for the use of virtual approaches to communication, but this does not mean that communicating with communities and ensuring there are spaces where ideas and concerns can be exchanged directly will not continue to be as important as they have always been in building trust, garnering local support, and listening in order to better understand and respond to community concerns, perceptions, and realities. This Africa's Voices Foundation (AVF) report includes findings from the use of interactive radio - along with text messaging (SMS) - as a research tool to understand socio-cultural beliefs related to polio and routine immunisations, as well as child and maternal health.
   
• 10.WORKING WITH RELIGIOUS LEADERS
  Eradicating Polio: Working with Religious Leaders to Enhance Community Ownership [Jun 2013]Religious leaders have a major role to play in tackling COVID-19 pandemic - from transforming Friday prayers or Sunday congregations into virtual spaces of worship to encouraging communities in behaviours that will help slow the spread. Polio programmes have long worked with religious leaders and have both existing networks of leaders who are committed to improving the health of the communities they serve and effective tools to sensitise, engage, and sustain the commitment of religious leaders. This document provides insight into how the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) joined hands with religious leaders to give a new turn to the polio eradication programme in Uttar Pradesh, India.
   
• 11.DATA
  Using Data to Guide Action in Polio Health Communications: Experience from the Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI)
  by Sebastian Taylor and Lora Shimp, May 2010Tracking community perceptions and concerns related to the COVID-19 response will be critical to sustaining the behaviours that reduce infection. The polio programme has many years of experience gathering and utilising data to better understand community concerns, identify clusters of refusals, and develop local responses that reflect those local concerns. This paper, while somewhat dated, has relevance today. It explains the importance of collecting and using data about community concerns at a very local level and encourages placing those concerns within the socio-ecological environment of local realities. It also highlights the willingness across the polio programme to explore underlying causes, break down categories of analysis, and develop indicators more finely tuned to the actual conditions and perspectives of the communities to be reached.
   

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