Browsing by Author "Shuro, Linda"

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    A qualitative process evaluation of community-based participatory research and human-centered design in the ‘let’s talk about vaccines’ approach in Mozambique and Malawi
    (BioMed Central Ltd, 2025) Shuro, Linda; De Man, Jeroen; Knight, Lucia; Tabana, Hanani; Schneider, Helen
    Background: Ensuring full coverage of childhood vaccination programmes is a persistent challenge in low- and middle-income countries. Urgent action is required to ensure catch up of missed immunisations in children, while simultaneously building trust and demand within communities to sustainably address existing immunization gaps. This paper summarizes the findings of a process evaluation of the ‘Let’s talk about vaccines’ approach by VillageReach in Mozambique and Malawi. The approach used community-based participatory research to identify the barriers to childhood vaccination faced by caregivers and healthcare workers, with human-centered design to codesign potential interventions to improve under two immunization access and uptake. Methods: To evaluate the implementation of the ‘Let’s talk about vaccines’ approach we conducted a qualitative process evaluation guided by the Reach Effectiveness Adoption Implementation Maintenance framework and Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR). We completed a total of 76 qualitative interviews and 85 self-administered surveys among caregivers, healthcare workers, health officials and other stakeholders involved in the approach. We transcribed the interviews verbatim and analysed them using thematic analysis and constructs of the RE-AIM and CFIR frameworks. We analysed the survey results in Excel. Results: Key elements of the approach contributing to high fidelity to community-based participatory research principles in both countries, included diverse collaborative study and project teams, involvement of eight caregiver researchers, novel and traditional participatory methods, and extensive mobilization efforts. Success factors for human-centered design in the ideation and prototyping phase included fostering equal participation and empathy, value placed on each participant’s input, mitigating inherent power differences, interactive feedback processes, and extensive iterative processes leading to tangible solutions. Challenges included adjusting to new methods and contextual realities. Factors influencing the potential adoption of the approach included locally developed solutions, participant involvement, collaboration, a major advantage over alternative approaches, ease of use of the co-created interventions, alignment with government objectives, and adaptability for system-wide integration into immunization programming. The potential sustainability of the approach was supported by the involvement of health ministries, health professionals, community representatives, and capacity building of local structures. However, resource and incentive constraints posed as a potential challenge to maintaining long-term motivation and action. Conclusion: The evaluation findings from the ‘Let’s talk about vaccines’ approach highlighted key elements for applying community-based participatory research and human-centered design to collaboratively identify immunization barriers and create tangible solutions to overcome them. By integrating these approaches into routine immunization programs, it can potentially improve vaccination efforts for children under two in low and middle-income countries, leading to lasting change. Supporting policies that prioritize community involvement in research, program design and implementation and sustainable funding enhances immunization strategies, ensuring that they are tailored to local needs.
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    The development of an anti-substance abuse initiative for high schools in the Capricorn district, Polokwane
    (University of Western Cape, 2021) Shuro, Linda; Waggie, Firdouza
    Substance abuse among adolescents is a Public Health concern globally with approximately 25 million adolescents (aged 13-15 years) who smoke tobacco, one in every ten girls and one in every five boys. In low- and middle-income countries, 14 % of girls and 18% of boys (13-15years old) are engaged in alcohol use. The Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health of 2018, reports that among the 15- to 19-year-olds, greater than a quarter were current alcohol drinkers. Cannabis (marijuana/dagga) is highly used globally with approximately 3.8% between 15 and 64 years, about 188 million people used it once or more times in 2017. The most commonly abused substances are alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis (marijuana/dagga). In South Africa, most adolescents are found in schools and the average age of drug experimentation is 12 years with early onset of use at about ten years of age.