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The
Challenge
- Achieve active community involvement
- Solicit input from the earliest program planning stages
- Encourage community ownership
- Programs that emphasize telling communities what to do, without involving them or taking their views into account, are not likely to be effective
- True community participation is key
| Several ideas have been suggested for the types of activities
that community-based dengue control programs might include.
The challenge facing those who wish to design effective community
programs is to achieve active involvement, with community input
and participation in the program. To the greatest extent possible,
community participation should be solicited in the earliest
stages of program planning, including the formative stages where
data on local barriers and motivating factors are collected.
This will not only result in a program that is more likely to
address the actual situation and needs of the community, but
will encourage community ownership and participation. Many programs
in the past that were intended to focus on the community were
developed by vector control personnel without local input, and
placed emphasis on telling the community what to do without
giving sufficient consideration to the community's viewpoint.
Such plans or programs do not represent a real partnership between
government health agencies and the community, and thus are not
likely to be effective. True community participation is likely
to be the key to successful dengue prevention efforts in the
future. |
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