Engaging faith communities in public health messaging in response to COVID-19: Lessons learnt from the Democratic Republic of Congo
2022
An article in Frontiers reports on the COVID-19 experience of faith leaders and their communities in Ituri, Democratic Republic of the Congo. A qualitative participatory research design, using a workshop methodology was deployed to seek opinions of an invited group of faith leaders. Local faith leaders described how misinterpretation and misinformation about COVID-19 and public health measures led to confusion and a lack of capacity to do what the government asked them to do with respect to COVID-19 measures. Faith leaders revealed they would like more health training and would like to co-create public health messages with officials for more effective messaging.