Professor,
Department of Community Medicine,
Rohilkhand Medical College and Hospital, Bareilly
Title of the project (CB): Community Behavior and its determinants in relation to Malaria prevention and control in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh
Summary:
Malaria, one of the major diseases in developing nations, has had a long and checked history in India. It was malaria who supposingly stopped the mission of emperor Alexander in India. Malaria was the commonest cause of mortality among British soldiers in Africa and SouthEast Asia more than any enemy / war. It resulted in research for the causative organism and finally in 1897, Ross. R, a British Army Officer, established the connection between mosquitoes and the deadly disease. Since then humans are fighting against malaria starting from modifying risky behaviour promoting mosquito bite upto treatment of resulting fatal complications of malaria infection. Invention of various anti protozoal drugs gave edges to humans in treating disease but still more than 125 years of fighting experience against malaria shows importance of prevention by modifying risky behaviours favoring mosquito bites.
In line with the WHO Global Technical Strategy (GTS) for Malaria 2016–2030 and the Asia Pacific Leaders Malaria Alliance Malaria Elimination Roadmap, India framed “The National Framework for malaria elimination in India 2016-2030” which was launched in February 2016. India further promised to accomplish this objective by 2027.
As part of the national framework of maria elimination, detection of risky behavior is a strategy to forecast and prevent any unusual situations related to malaria. Furthermore, Behavior change communication and community mobilization was identified as a key strategy.
Therefore, investigators would like to conduct a detailed approach on Community behavior and its determinants in relation to malaria elimination for developing and implementing a scalable community engagement model, with the main objectives of identifying the behavioral barriers of at risk communities regarding acceptance and use of available preventive measures and exploring early and effective health care seeking behaviour towards Malaria.
The study involves a mixed study approach with cross sectional and phenomenological design. The study sites are high endemic areas in Bareilly, a district in Uttar Pradesh which accounts for the app. 50% malaria cases of the whole state. 6 villages/areas from 2 blocks will be included in the study. The whole village households will be the study participants and Grid sampling will be used for data collection. At the end of the two years of the highest level commitment study, the derived community engagement model paves the way for a paradigm shift in the surveillance approach, tailoring the program planning to high endemic to low endemic areas, to reach Malaria free India.
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