Breaking the Mold: Interns Dive into Disease Prevention and Behavioral Change

Interns started their day bright and early with a series of lectures talking about what they’ll be working on this week. Assistant Director Trisha Sakamuri walked interns through the workshop logistics and presentation guidelines, answering any questions that arose. Interns are split amongst themselves into the 4 disease groups, assigned either to Malaria, Nutritional Anemia, Typhoid, or Acute Respiratory Infections. Within the disease groups, there are three subtopics in which the teams are divided: Transmission and Symptoms, Diagnosis and Treatment, and Prevention and Community Prevention. Today, interns will be learning about all of the diseases in preparation for their workshop, which will be specific to their subtopic within their disease, catered to the community in Northern Nigeria. 

Following this, Dr. Zainab, one of our partner physicians from Northern Nigeria, presented on health education and behavioral change communication in Northern Nigeria. The primary focus of this is on the requirement for public health practice in the region.

Starting off, she emphasized the importance of behavioral change communication (BCC) to bring about the health of communities. She then posed a question to the interns: What is health? Interns gave a variety of answers, including that it’s a state of union and proper functioning of different body systems. Dr. Zainab agreed with this definition, validating that physical health is one of the primary definitions people think of when they first hear the word health. But she also recognized the other aspects of health that are vital to one’s overall well-being, including emotional and mental health. 

She then transitioned to behavior, asking interns for definitions. Highlighting beneficial and harmful types of behavior, she emphasized the connection between people’s behavior and their health condition. Though behavior is voluntary, there are a variety of external factors that influence people’s behaviors, including knowledge, beliefs, mentors/those we admire, resources, skills, and the environment. 

She pointed to the interesting nature of beliefs, as they are subjective feelings usually derived from parents, grandparents, and those we respect. The level of importance we place upon somebody typically correlates with how much we believe and/or follow what they do. This could contribute to the vaccine hesitance, which is so prevalent in Northern Nigeria. Breaking this hesitancy requires health professionals to understand the cultural makeup and 

“In order to achieve anything, there has to be a certain set of principles; one of the first principles is interest–without interest, you won’t be able to achieve your target.” Coming up with intriguing connections and making it interesting to your target group will make programs more enticing for the target group to engage with in the first place, she told them. 

In less than 24 hours, we are educating our interns deeply about public health and the challenges it faces in Northern Nigeria. They are invited to ask as many questions as they have, and we’ll be here to help them every step of the way.