Public Engagement to strengthen COVID-19 genomics research in Africa

This proposal aims to engage key audiences in Ghana such as SARS-CoV-2 Genomic Surveillance researchers, university students, high school students, media professionals, and animators to guide the development and use of animation toolkits for aiding public engagement with SARS-CoV-2 Genomic Surveillance, create three animations on SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance, and train researchers and media professionals to use the toolkits to engage key audiences including university and high school students, and other members of the public. The animations will focus on issues including how viruses mutate, use of sequencing to detect variants, and how variants affect COVID-19 evolution. We will assess toolkits' impacts using surveys and focus group discussions with priority audiences, including researchers and media professionals who will use the toolkits. We will use the findings to develop best practice for implementing and evaluating public engagement with genomic surveillance. To build capacity in public engagement with genomic surveillance, we will use a) train-the-trainer approach, and b) focus group discussions, key informant interviews and a deliberative workshop with genomic researchers and media professionals to create two research strategies: one focusing on how researchers could engage with members of the public, and a second focusing on researchers-media professionals' engagement with genomic surveillance.