Malaria is a disease caused by a type of parasite named Plasmodium, which is transmitted to people through the bites of infected mosquitoes. It is a major public health problem in much of the tropics and subtropics, and children under five years of age are one of the most vulnerable groups at risk of severe illness and death from malaria. Over the last 20 years, efforts to control and prevent malaria have proven very effective in protecting children from this often fatal disease. Parental engagement is one of the most important drivers of the success of these programs. The importance of parental engagement in child and pediatric malaria prevention will be discussed here, approaches to enhance engagement will be suggested, and briefly-described examples of programs that have been used to engage and protect parents and their children are provided.
The Importance of Parental Engagement in Malaria Prevention
Parental engagement is crucial in pediatric malaria prevention for several reasons:
Understanding and Implementing Preventive Measures
- Education: Adults should be informed about malaria, its signs and symptoms, and methods of prevention. A well-informed adult is more likely to embrace and implement preventive behaviors such as ITN utilization, and IRS, and ensure timely malaria treatment for their child.
- Behavioral Change: Improved malaria prevention through behavior change can involve varying daily routines and practices. Parents are of key importance in changing behaviors, such as those reflecting participation in sleeping under ITNs and eliminating mosquito breeding around the house.
Monitoring and Managing Health
- Parents as First Detectors: Having symptoms of malaria means that your child will draw care and attention (and perhaps action) from parents and home caregivers, often early on in the illness, greatly improving its chances of prompt diagnosis and treatment before advanced disease can set in.
- Treatment adherence: children should complete their full course of antimalarial treatment. At the same time, parents need to keep their children on schedule for taking the medications and following up with a doctor.
Advocacy and Community Influence
- Community Role: Engaged parents can be amplifiers of efficacy in their communities. Specifically, they can share their knowledge and experiences with others and advocate for preventive practices and community-wide efforts.
- Moreover, parents can be surveyed to provide feedback and new insights on how to improve malaria prevention efforts and increase their reach. As people absorb and implement these new lessons learned, they become better equipped to tackle future challenges. Additionally, parents can become agents of change, sharing helpful advice and mentoring the next generation on important community issues.
Strategies for Enhancing Parental Engagement
There are clear policies that aid programs of malaria prevention in children to make sure they have a greater impact on parents:
1. Educational Initiatives
- Organize community workshops and seminars on malaria prevention, signs, and treatment so that parents are informed and come together and discuss the issue with like-minded people.
- Educational materials: produce simple and readable handouts (brochures, posters, and videos) and make them available in the local language, and in cognitively appropriate formats when applicable (eg, colors, male or female models, faces with smiles or frowns).
2. Health Campaigns
- Public Awareness Campaigns: Involve the media, such as radio, television, and social media, to promote awareness-building information about protecting against malaria and parents’ role. Campaigns need to have preventive messages and practical tips for implementation.
- Community-Based Events: Organise health fairs or malaria prevention days at the community level to demonstrate ITN use, screen for malaria, and distribute preventive tools.
3. Involvement in Program Design and Implementation
- Participatory Approaches: Parents are included in the planning and implementation of malaria programs to ensure decision-making processes address their needs and preferences.
- Feedback Mechanisms: Establish feedback mechanisms that ensure that parents can provide feedback on malaria prevention programs. Use this feedback to adapt and improve malaria prevention programs.
4. Supportive Interventions
- Home Visits: Implement home visit programs where trained health workers or community health volunteers provide counseling and community-based support to parents. These visits allow health workers to assess personal situations directly and demonstrate preventive measures in a familiar environment. Furthermore, this personalized approach can strengthen relationships between health workers and families, leading to more effective implementation of malaria prevention strategies.
- Support groups: Have parents meet with one another to exchange experiences, discuss challenges, and receive advice on how to prevent malaria. They could become mutual support platforms.
5. Empowerment and Incentives
- Training Programs: Parents can become community health champions during training programs, helping lead malaria-prevention efforts and spreading best practices in their communities.
- Incentive Programs: Provide some type of incentive – such as access to additional health services or small gifts – for parents who participate in malaria prevention activities and adhere to prescribed practices.
Successful Examples of Parental Engagement in Malaria Prevention
Several programs around the world have successfully engaged parents in pediatric malaria prevention:
1. The Malaria Control Program in Kenya
The Malaria Control Program in Kenya, for instance, combines parental and community education along with in-the-field support to promote the use of preventive methods. Staff, including community health workers, conduct outreach through partnerships with local groups to teach parents about malaria. They also provide ITNs and promote ongoing parental supervision and ITN maintenance. As a result, the malaria infection rate has dropped dramatically.
2. The Niyel Malaria Prevention Initiative in Nigeria
The jury’s still out on the effectiveness of behavior-change experiments, but The Niyel Malaria Prevention Initiative, delivered by Save the Children in partnership with the Nigerian Federal Malaria Control Program and other organizations in Nigeria, works with – rather than on – parents to help them reduce their children’s risk of malaria. Community-based interventions such as parent training using educational workshops and home visits provide parents with information on malaria prevention and treatment. A closer and more consistent relationship with parents and local leaders has drastically increased the use of ITNs and improved early diagnosis and treatment rates.
3. The Malaria Free Zambia Project
An important ingredient of the Malaria-Free Zambia Project is to enhance parental involvement in malaria prevention and control. In addition to training parents on malaria prevention and ITN use, the initiative engaged them in community advocacy to raise awareness about adopting preventive measures throughout the community.
Overcoming Challenges in Parental Engagement
Important as this might be, encouraging parents to get involved in malaria prevention programs can be problematic because of the following. There are several reasons which prevent parental involvement:
1. Lack of Awareness and Knowledge
Challenge: Parents may lack sufficient knowledge about malaria and effective prevention strategies.
Solution: Provide targeted education and create awareness using multiple channels for reaching parents through simple, easy-to-understand culturally appropriate print and electronic materials.
2. Resource Constraints
Challenge: Limited resources can hinder the implementation of effective parental engagement strategies.
Solution: Pool the forces of various local NGOs, government departments, and other civil society institutions to ensure that resources are invested to maximum effect. Find school departments, NGOs, and other funders to support community-based interventions and educational programs.
3. Cultural and Social Barriers
The protective effect of malaria against tuberculosis might cause parents to avoid adopting malaria control strategies. Another challenge is that parents’ willingness to adopt malaria prevention strategies may depend on cultural beliefs and social norms that are difficult to measure.
Solution: Create culturally sensitive outreach and involve community leaders in advocacy efforts. Tailor messages to reflect culture-specific beliefs and practices.
Engaging parents in prevention is a major factor in successful programs for pediatric malaria. Providing education and support to parents in designing and delivering prevention programs will not only help protect children from malaria but also enable families to fulfill one of their primary responsibilities: caring for their children’s health. Improving health consequences in the short term and building the resilience of communities will also support longer-term public health goals. As we tackle the challenges of malaria, strengthening the support of parents and their role in prevention will be a critical factor in success in the long term.
