Health Promotion Bureau, No. 02, Kynsey Road, Colombo 08, Sri Lanka.
Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, No.98, Rawathawatta Road, Moratuwa, Sri Lanka.
J Relig Health. 2022 Feb;61(1):687-702. doi: 10.1007/s10943-021-01463-8. Epub 2021 Nov 23.
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all countries irrespective of their state of development. In countries with traditional societies, religious leaders have been acknowledged as key stakeholders in community engagement activities, including disease prevention. A community-level prevention model was established in 2020 by the Health Promotion Bureau (HPB), Sri Lanka, which incorporated mobilisation of the clergy to support the prevention and response schemes to COVID-19 with non-governmental stakeholders. This model was part of a more extensive community engagement network established by the HPB in cooperation with the country offices for WHO and UNICEF. Building trust, empowering behavioural traits applicable to minimise risks from COVID-19, leadership and coordination, message dissemination, addressing stigma and discrimination, supporting testing procedures, contact tracing activities and vaccination, building community resilience, spiritual and psychosocial support, and welfare provision are some of the useful factors that were identified in the model. Furthermore, a much broader and holistic approach is needed to focus on health behaviours and social and cultural aspects in a multi-faceted nature. This paper highlights a novel COVID-19 prevention model with active involvement of religious leaders that can be implemented in low resource settings. Our experience from Sri Lanka demonstrates the feasibility of implementing this model to mitigate the disastrous situation following the COVID-19 outbreak.
COVID-19 大流行影响了所有国家，无论其发展状况如何。在传统社会的国家，宗教领袖被公认为社区参与活动的重要利益相关者，包括疾病预防。2020 年，斯里兰卡健康促进局（HPB）建立了一个社区层面的预防模型，该模型整合了动员神职人员来支持 COVID-19 的预防和应对计划，与非政府利益相关者合作。该模型是 HPB 与世界卫生组织和联合国儿童基金会国家办事处合作建立的更广泛的社区参与网络的一部分。建立信任、赋予适用于降低 COVID-19 风险的行为特征、领导力和协调、信息传播、解决污名化和歧视、支持检测程序、接触者追踪活动和疫苗接种、建立社区弹性、精神和社会心理支持以及福利提供是该模型中确定的一些有用因素。此外，需要采取更加广泛和全面的方法，以多方面的方式关注健康行为以及社会和文化方面。本文强调了一种新的 COVID-19 预防模式，该模式积极涉及宗教领袖，可以在资源有限的环境中实施。我们在斯里兰卡的经验表明，实施这种模式以减轻 COVID-19 爆发后的灾难性情况是可行的。
