Guardians of Health - Community leaders

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Discover the Guardians of Health project – Community Leaders

The Guardians of Health - Community Leaders Project aims to develop an event-based surveillance (EBV) system with the specific and active involvement of community leaders. Faced with the challenge of sustainability in the long-term implementation of community-based EBV, the purpose of this research is to investigate the viability of this surveillance method and whether the involvement of community leaders in the design of the data reporting system from the outset can help to incorporate it into local health surveillance.

In Brazil, the project will take place in the Integrated Development Region of the Federal District and surroundings (RIDE-DF), specifically in the Eastern Health Region of the Federal District and in some municipalities in the state of Goiás that make up RIDE-DF, namely Pirenópolis, Cavalcante and Niquelândia. In Cape Verde, it will take place in the municipalities of Praia and Santa Catarina de Santiago, on Santiago Island.

methodology

The structure of this project includes literature reviews on surveillance methods and processes, methods of mapping of local leaders, the adaptation of digital tools based on the views of the community leaders, training workshops, and, after implementation, the monitoring and evaluation of reports made by the community leaders to assess effectiveness and compare with the conventional surveillance system The Guardians of Health event based surveillance application was the resource chosen for fieldwork with participating community leaders and has is being adapted and tested with community leaders for the purpose of the project.

The application of community-based VBE using Guardians of Health was the resource chosen for field work with participating community leaders and has been adapted and tested with community leaders for the purpose of the project. In a similar way to the participatory surveillance mode that already exists in the application, community leaders will be able to report signs that will be evaluated by the project's team of epidemiologists, establishing a flow of communication with local surveillance teams to identify possible outbreaks.

Guardians of Health – Community Leaders is coordinated by the Brazilian Association of Field Epidemiology Professionals (ProEpi) , in partnership with the Health Situation Room of the University of Brasília (SDS UnB) , the National Institute of Public Health of Cape Verde and the UK Public Health Rapid Support Team (UK-PHRST) . UK-PHRST is an innovative partnership between the UK Health Security Agency and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, funded with UK assistance by the UK Department of Health and Social Care.