Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Jul;43(4):443-452.
doi: 10.1177/0272684X211031106. Epub 2021 Jul 15.

Community Health Education for Health Crisis Management: The Case of COVID-19 in Cameroon

Marcellus Mbah  1 , Henry Bang  2 , Humphrey Ndi  3 , Judwin Alieh Ndzo  4
Affiliations

Community Health Education for Health Crisis Management: The Case of COVID-19 in Cameroon

Marcellus Mbah et al. Community Health Equity Res Policy. 2023 Jul.

Abstract

The current coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has led Cameroon's government to implement public health measures aimed at preventing its spread. This paper investigates how community health education on the virus was being carried out, what gaps exist and what further action could be taken. A survey instrument was used to gather data among a total of 179 Cameroonians recruited via opportunistic and snowball sampling methods. According to our findings, gaps exist. These include the need for adequate community health education on COVID-19, maximising multilingualism and indigenous cultural assets and disbanding misconceptions on the pandemic, as well as stigmatisation. The paper culminates by underlining the significance of an integrated approach to confront the pandemic. This approach captures the need to frame but also firm up community health education architecture on COVID-19 that captures inputs from different stakeholders, including indigenous knowledge holders, for collective wellbeing.

Keywords: COVID-19; Cameroon; community health education; integrated approach.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Participants’ Perception of the Adequacy of Community Health Education.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Participants’ Rating of the Extent to Which COVID-19 Patients Were Stigmatised.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
A Framework for an Integrated Community Health Education on a Global Pandemic.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Salyer JS, Maeda J, Sembuche S, et al.. The first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa: a cross-sectional study. Lancet 2021; 397: 1265–1275. www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00632-2/fulltext (accessed 28 March 2021). - PMC - PubMed
    1. WHO. WHO African Region numbers at a glance, www.afro.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus-covid-19 (2021, accessed 28 March 2021).
    1. Soy A. Coronavirus in Africa: five reasons why Covid-19 has been less deadly than elsewhere. BBC News, 2020, www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-54418613 (accessed 28 March 2021).
    1. Maeda JM, Nkengasong JN.The puzzle of the COVID-19 pandemic in Africa. Science 2021; 371: 27–28. - PubMed
    1. Tembo J, Maluzi K, Egbe F, et al.. Covid-19 in Africa. BMJ 2021; 372: n457. https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n457 (accessed on the 28 March 2021). - PubMed