Communicating COVID-19 Knowledge, Perceptions, Attitudes and Practices in Zimbabwe

Following the epidemic of the corona virus disease of 2019 (COVID 19) which has registered more than 10 million cases and killed more than 1.000,000 people world-wide, the African region so far has not been spared. Various preventive measures including total national shut down and social/physical distancing were recommended and adopted by many countries including Zimbabwe. Lockdowns have been introduced to curb the spread of the disease. Although this proved to be an effective epidemiological measure in flattening the epidemic curve, but however, the extension of the lockdown period poses further challenges to the already distressed economy and to ensuring strict compliance with social distancing guidelines. The nature of COVID-19 means that some parts of the population, particularly the elderly and the poor, and those with pre-existing conditions such as heart disease, diabetes or high blood pressure, have a very high risk of becoming seriously ill and eventually die prematurely. Lockdown measures among those with middle and high incomes, who can work from home, will be an inconvenience at worst. People with the resources will stock up and stay at home, and so strict measures have been popular in those groups. But for the informal sector in places without an economic safety net, or the rural and migrant poor, the measures can mean extreme hardship. Instead of staying in one place, people will start moving around more than previously in search of food, sometimes travelling large distances and potentially aggravating the epidemic. This research study will be conducted to understand how knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, values, perceptions and among rural communities were impacted by COVID-19. The role of social, cultural and economic factors, language preferences, source credibility, influencers and preferred communication channels in health seeking and/or risk-taking behaviours related to COVID-19 will be interrogated. To our best knowledge there is limited published literature in Zimbabwe which aimed at assessing knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) and the impact of social, cultural and economic factors towards COVID-19 among rural communities. The study will involve existing public health and community-based networks, media, local NGOs, schools, local governments and other sectors such as healthcare service providers, education sector, business, travel and food/agriculture sectors using a consistent mechanism of communication. . Findings (effects and other results) of the study will be communicated to media through filming videos, storytelling and magazine print. Furthermore, collecting KAP surveys among at-risk populations is useful to inform prevention, control and mitigation measures during epidemics. Information from these surveys is pivotal for policymakers and program implementers to use only during the outbreak and the recovery stages and to provide basis for future similar epidemics. Expected Outputs Our project will focus on reporting impacts of research and evidence on those using public health services. We will particularly focus on rural populations. Our film output will target a broad audience reached by mainstream media in Zimbabwe and well as public health service users. Team members have close contacts with Zimbabwe TV and have already pitched the idea for broadcast. The second output we produce, the public health messaging, will be primarily aimed at rural communities similar to the one which we profile. However, we are using a very simple animation style which means that it can be very easily changed and adapted to other communities in other regions or countries. Again, we should be able to achieve a very wide reach for these through internet distribution, broadcast and across platforms like WhatsApp, not only in Zimbabwe, but also in other countries