What is it about?
Community drug distributors (CDDs) are vital to progress made in the elimination of neglected tropical diseases. Formative work in Côte d’Ivoire and Uganda revealed that CDDs can encounter considerable challenges during their work. This paper explores CDD resilience during mass drug administration (MDA). Community support during MDA and positive community-CDD relationships appear to be associated with CDDs’ personal capacity to overcome adversity (resilience). Involving communities and community leadership in the selection and support of CDDs has the potential to benefit their well-being.
Featured Image
Why is it important?
Our findings explored the challenges CDDs face carrying out mass drug administration in the community and elucidated factors associated with resilience. We demonstrated the application of the Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale 25 (CD-RISC-25) in this research to measure resilience as an outcome.
Perspectives
This article highlights an under-researched area - the resilience of community drug distributors. We rely on these individuals to be the 'arms and legs' of our programs, but often do not sufficiently understand their challenges and lived experiences. Our longstanding research collaboration has sought to understand how to sustain the motivation of community drug distributors.
Alison Krentel
University of Ottawa
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A mixed-methods exploration into the resilience of community drug distributors conducting mass drug administration for preventive chemotherapy of lymphatic filariasis and onchocerciasis in Côte d’Ivoire and Uganda, PLOS Global Public Health, July 2022, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0000700.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
