School children have been increasingly recognized as health messengers for malaria control.
The objective of this study was to determine the impact of school-based malaria education intervention on school children and community adults.
Methods: This study was conducted in the Dangme-East district of the Greater Accra Region, Ghana, between 2007 and 2008. Trained schoolteachers designed participatory health education activities and led school children to disseminate messages related to malaria control to their communities.Three schools and their respective communities were chosen for the study and assigned to an intervention group (one school) and a control group (two schools). Questionnaire-based interviews and parasitological surveys were conducted before and after the intervention, with the intervention group (Results: After the intervention, the misperception that malaria has multiple causes was significantly improved, both among children and community adults. Moreover, the community adults who treated a bed net with insecticide in the past six months, increased from 21.5% to 50.0% (p<0.001).parasite p="0.003).">
Conclusions: This study suggests that the participatory health education intervention contributed to the decreased malaria prevalence among children.It had a positive impact not only on school children, but also on community adults, through the improvement of knowledge and practices. This strategy can be applied as a complementary approach to existing malaria control strategies in West African countries where school health management systems have been strengthened.
http://7thspace.com/headlines/341761/school_based_participatory_health_education_for_malaria_control_in_ghana_
engaging_children_as_health_messengers.html
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