14,117 The Drum Beat, January 22- 2020, Quick Links: A Focused Email Initiative for the Polio Community and Beyond

* A QUICK HISTORY OF AND INTRO TO QUICK LINKS
* HOW TO RECEIVE AND ENGAGE WITH QUICK LINKS
* SOME OF THE TOPICS COVERED SO FAR
* PARTICIPATE FURTHER BY SURVEYING THE CI

• 1. Introducing Quick Links
  In response to feedback gathered at polio eradication Technical Advisory Group (TAG) meetings and communication reviews, The CI undertook an experiment with the intent of sending brief, focused, timely emails on specific high-priority issues for the polio programme in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The idea is to make relevant content available in digestible amounts to those working directly on resolving these issues and to point them to other rich repositories of polio communication content such as that found on The CI Polio Network website, the GPEI website, and UNICEF’s Rhizome website. Though the recipients for the first experimental phase included an initial mailing list of a small number of people, this is a list that can grow and can be turned into an active discussion group, based on the archived content and contributions now accessible to all via The CI’s Polio and Immunization Network. Details follow below; please join us!

To begin receiving contributions, you may email Chris Morry at cmorry@comminit.com with “Subscribe Quick Links” in the subject line.

• 2. Lessons Learned in the Use of Data
  The pressing questions of today are around directing the right data to the right people in the right form at the right time. This Quick Links includes a list of just 3 of the polio communication resources related to data use: One focuses on the evolution of data use in the polio programme and how this evolution occurred in response to programme needs; one looks at how data has been used in the polio programme (drawing on evidence from the India and Nigeria country programmes); and the final one, which is not based on the polio experience, shares experience from PATH on how to build data use into a working culture.
• 3. Community Engagement in Conflict-affected Areas and with the Hard-to-reach
  The GPEI encounters challenges related to community engagement in conflict-affected areas and amongst hard-to-reach populations. This Quick Links features 3 examples of the many relevant summaries on The CI polio website. The first presents the findings of a cluster randomised control trial in conflict-affected districts of Pakistan on polio community engagement integrated with maternal and child health immunisation. The second looks at lessons from Nigeria about reaching hard-to-reach mobile populations. The third looks to India’s Social Mobilization Network (SMNet) and describes its organisational structure and the activities it undertook to create a highly successful social mobilisation partnership.
• 4. Working with Religious Leaders
  These 3 Quick Links resources include: a case study out of Northern Nigeria for building relationships with religious leaders where trust is lacking, a document from UNICEF India exploring the importance of religious leadership for building community ownership, and an Islamic faith-based manual for working in conflict zones.
• 5. Anti-vaxx Arguments, Using Social Media and Building Trust
  In the context of an April 22 2019 event in Peshawar, Pakistan, that resulted in misinformation being disseminated about the safety of the polio vaccine, with rumours and panic left in its wake, these 3 selections focus on: how people form health beliefs and why scientific counter-argument alone seldom works, ideas for using social media for public health, and ways to build trust.

• 6. Mandatory Vaccination and Punishment – Reasons to Resist
  As refusals and hesitancy grow, one might think that punishing those who refuse and making vaccination mandatory will turn things around and get vaccination levels back on track. However, research shows the opposite is often the case. This Quick Links provides a teaser to some of the content in an edition of The Drum Beat titled Post-Crisis Communication: The Case of Polio and Vaccines. One Quick Links selection presents an overview of mandatory immunisation from 3 countries; one includes lessons from outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in Muslim majority countries; and one examines Australia’s “No Jab, No Pay” policy.
• 7. Expanded Age Groups for Vaccination – Do We Have the Evidence to Evaluate Communication Risk?
  This Quick Links looks at research on the immunological impact of, and arguments for, expanding the age of children to be immunised against polio. Any intervention that provides limited benefit and only in some contexts needs to be carefully evaluated against risks. Considering episodes like the public panic and viral social media misinformation that led to the large spike in refusals related to an expanded age groups (EAG) for polio vaccination campaign referenced in #5, above, the risks in certain contexts can be high. The communication risks are poorly understood and hardly mentioned in the literature on EAG, but the 3 analyses included in this Quick Links point out the marginal impact of EAG on immunity when compared with other interventions.
• 8. Understanding Health Provision and Communication in Inaccessible Areas
  This Quick Links focuses on the importance of understanding that demand for health care does not disappear in inaccessible areas and that alternative providers emerge in areas that government and other formal providers cannot access. To work in such environments requires a well-informed understanding of the various actors, the services they provide, and which ones can be effective partners in delivering vaccination and other health services. It also requires a strong understanding of the perceived health priorities of communities living in these areas and respectful engagement with local leaders. The 3 analyses selected for this Quick Links point to the importance of understanding these complex and crowded spaces inside conflict-affected areas and how to communicate with the people living in them. Case studies come, for example, from Afghanistan, Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Haiti, Palestine, and Somalia.
• 9. Incentives and Demand for Immunisation
  There is good evidence that well-designed interventions with appropriate health-related incentives have a positive impact on reducing the numbers of children who are chronically missed in the context of vaccination. However, incentives by themselves have limited impact, add cost, and need to be focused on high-risk communities. This Quick Links includes 4 articles: The first looks at the impact of several blended interventions in northern Nigeria that had a positive impact on immunising children in non-compliant communities; the second compares immunisation camps with and without pluses and determines that pluses increase uptake of immunisation services; the third is a meta-analysis of demand-side interventions in low- and middle-income countries; and the fourth looks at an intervention in Nigeria that combined incentives with direct observation of vaccination, which helped reduce numbers of chronically missed children.
• 10. Fake News
  This Quick Links focuses on “fake news” and why it is important for the polio programme to understand that it is more complex than simply countering inaccurate information: It is a process in which information is filtered, transformed, and amplified during its journey through multiple social media spaces. The 3 resources (with bonus links) shared here demonstrate the importance of identifying the source of inaccurate information, unpacking the intent of those who disseminate inaccurate information, and understanding the path through which information circulates as a way to understand why and how some social media environments tend to disseminate and amplify misinformation more than others.

• You may also be interested in:
  The CI’s Polio Network
  GPEI resources
  UNICEF’s Rhizome site