Community and Health on desklib

Running head: COMMUNITY AND HEALTH
COMMUNITY AND HEALTH
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

1COMMUNITY AND HEALTH
Introduction
Ebola virus is a lethal disease in humans, which is transmitted to the human beings from
the wild animals and spread to populations easily through human to human transmission
(WHO., 2018). Ebola outbreak has affected some of the world’s most susceptible communities
that are still recovering from the trauma of the civil war and the Ebola outbreak had worsened
the situation. However, community engagement and social mobilization plays an important
role in dealing with the Ebola response. This paper puts forward a bottom up approach for
engaging the communities in the managing the Ebola outbreak.
Community engagement and mobilization strategy for an Ebola outbreak
A bottom up approach
The goal for the emergency response plan is will be to reduce the mortality and
morbidity relate to the Ebola outbreak. The objectives for the response plan is to detect all the
cases of the Ebola virus disease in the equatorial province, to trace an follow all the contacts,
reduce the risk of the transmission of EVD in the community, promotion of collective practices
through communication of the risks, social mobilization and engagement with the community
to prevent the spread of the EVD in the equatorial province (WHO., 2018). A bottom up
approach will be used in the community engagement and the mobilization strategy that
involves achieving the goal by targeting strategies from the grass root level that is the
community.
Social mobilization, building the capacities of the affected individuals in the affected
communities for managing and preventing Ebola is important to increase the trust and the
confidence in the outbreak control mechanism and to break the transmission of the virus
(Gillespie et al., 2016). The bottom up approach involves that the stakeholders should listen to
the communities and should responds to their needs.

2COMMUNITY AND HEALTH
Engagement
A sustained engagement and communication within the community groups at an active
level helps in the building of the trust and confidence in the response efforts And encourages
the participation of the community and action for the Ebola response (Gillespie et al., 2016)
The important domains for the community engagement are – 1) Strategy and
decentralization of the engagement of the community, funding for the community engagement,
provision of the supplies for the community engagement like mobile pones, airtime credits ,
printings, posters , radio announcement and the shows (Gostin, Lucey & Phelan, 2014). It is
necessary to map the villages and the communities in the affected areas.
Consultation
Consultation of with the community members for an Ebola emergency response is
needed before developing any policies and to educate them about the importance of the
policies. The government should consult with the representatives of the community to
understand the needs of the common people and to find out the best possible ways to reach the
common people (Gostin, Lucey & Phelan, 2014). It should be noted that the community
engagement in the rural areas should be different from the urban areas. Both interpersonal
approaches and mass media should be used as the communication approaches. Mass media can
work well in the rural areas (Dufty, 2012).
Participation
It is then essential to develop a solid leadership approach at different levels with the
authorities for coordinating the partner. A clear leadership and strong protocols are required to
be made starting from how to enter the communities to micro mapping of the communities, to
accurate collection of data and the beyond. Strategic partnership has to be made for achieving