K Milugo Trizah, V Mosha Mary, Wampande Eddie, Philemon Rune, N Lwanga Immaculate, Seeley Janet, K Sewankambo Nelson
International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology, Nairobi, Kenya.
Technical University of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya.
Open Res Afr. 2023 Dec 15;6:4. doi: 10.12688/openresafrica.13897.2. eCollection 2023.
Community engagement and involvement (CEI) in research usually depends on face-to-face interactions. However, the COVID-19 pandemic prevented such interactions because of national lockdowns and social distancing. This paper highlights the ways in which early career researchers from East Africa tackled CEI activities during the pandemic.
We provide four case examples that illustrate how early-career researchers based in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, deployed different approaches and initiatives to community-engaged research during the pandemic to encourage participation and uptake of research findings.
All the three early-career researchers attempted to use virtual/digital means to implement the CEI. However, in each country, this attempt was unsuccessful because of poor connectivity, as well as many poorer students lacking access to telephones and computers. Nevertheless, the researchers effectively engaged the students using different activities (making up songs, drawing comics, and taking part in quizzes) once the schools reopened.
These results highlight the complexity of implementing community engagement and involvement in health research when face-to-face interaction is not possible. The findings are relevant to researchers who wish to incorporate community engagement in their research and initiatives.
社区参与和介入研究通常依赖于面对面的互动。然而，由于全国封锁和社交距离措施，新冠疫情阻碍了此类互动。本文着重介绍了东非的早期职业研究人员在疫情期间开展社区参与和介入活动的方式。
我们提供了四个案例，以说明肯尼亚、乌干达和坦桑尼亚的早期职业研究人员在疫情期间如何采用不同方法和举措开展社区参与研究，以鼓励研究结果的参与和应用。
所有三位早期职业研究人员都试图利用虚拟/数字手段来实施社区参与和介入。然而，在每个国家，由于网络连接不佳，以及许多贫困学生无法使用电话和电脑，这一尝试均未成功。尽管如此，学校重新开学后，研究人员通过开展不同活动（编写歌曲、绘制漫画和参加测验）有效地让学生参与了进来。
这些结果凸显了在无法进行面对面互动时实施社区参与和介入健康研究的复杂性。这些发现对于希望将社区参与纳入其研究和举措的研究人员具有参考价值。
