Community Engagement in the Ebola Response: A Retrospective Mixed Methods Analysis of the Social Mobilisation Action Consortium (SMAC) Engagement in Sierra Leone

Abstract

University of Washington Abstract Community Engagement in the Ebola Response: A Retrospective Mixed Methods Analysis of the Social Mobilisation Action Consortium (SMAC) Engagement in Sierra Leone Katie Madson Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Benjamin Althouse Information School Introduction. During the 2014-15 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone, the Social Mobilisation Action Consortium (SMAC) used the Community Led Ebola Action approach to trigger collective action at a community level, in an effort to influence behavior change and reduce transmission of Ebola. Aims. This analysis examines the bylaws prioritized by communities through the SMAC engagement, to understand breadth and scope as well as geographic and temporal trends. Methods. Data was collected by community mobilizers through triggering and follow up community visits. An inductive approach was used to develop a set of codes to describe these bylaws, which were used in a linear supervised learning model to code the full set of bylaws. Bylaws were grouped into codes and broader categories, which were analyzed over time, geography, and visit type. Results. Categories of bylaws, specifically Reporting and Individual Contact bylaws, increased as a proportion of total bylaws at national and provincial levels. Reporting of target behaviors were not significantly different between trigger and follow up visits. Kambia offers a unique case study to examine the trends in bylaws placed in context of a regional initiative, The Northern Push. Discussion. The SMAC dataset offers an opportunity to understand how communities related to the Ebola outbreak by their expressed priorities, through a community engagement and behavior change intervention. Community engagement as a behavior change tool is particularly relevant for COVID-19 pandemic and the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo.