This One Heath National Emergency Risk Communication and Community Engagement Strategy is a continuous effort to strengthen risk communication to prevent and contain emergencies in Sierra Leone and the West African Subregion, and to establish and strengthen coordination, collaboration, and communication between the human, animal, and environmental health sectors and partners for better health outcomes. This Strategy aims at achieving the following objectives: ensuring the achievement of the intended outcomes and identifying areas for their improvement; enhancing relevance and promoting the well-being of the population; identifying and integrating the latest scientific research and evidence-based practices into the policy to enhance its effectiveness in promoting health and preventing diseases; engaging diverse stakeholders, including healthcare professionals, community organisations, and international partners, to gather insights, perspectives, and recommendations for policy improvement; improving public health outcomes, addressing emerging challenges, enhancing the effectiveness of the policy, and ensuring that it continues to meet the population's evolving needs; strengthening mainstreaming Risk Communication and Community Engagement across health and non-health sectors, including public health programmes and population groups; strengthening multi-sector government coordination, collaboration, and communication for preparedness and response to emergencies and public health threats. The vision of this Strategy describes a healthy Sierra Leone with people and animals co-existing in a safe environment thanks to an effective One Health collaboration. The mission aims at creating a resilient One Health system with efficient multisectoral coordination to prevent, detect, and respond to emerging and re-emerging health threats to humans, animals, and the environment. General objectives related to risk communication and community engagement include: establishing core coordination teams under One Health as leading sources of emergency information; providing clear and actionable communication on steps people can take to stay safe and healthy before, during, and after health emergencies; revising existing communication plans for gender and marginalised groups; ensuring consistency in communication before, during, and after health emergencies; increasing public confidence, community ownership and resilience by strengthening the ability of communities to respond to public health threats. Targeted objectives include: animal health and identification of potential hazards, vulnerabilities, and risks that may impact the community; environmental education and promotion of risk awareness, identification of hazards posed by climate change and its effects on deforestation, pollution and environmental degradation.
سيراليون · 2024-06-01