Grant: Planning and Dissemination Grant - Institute Community Support

In times of public health crises, tapping into personal and institutional trust at multiple scales is paramount for disseminating critical information, maintaining confidence in disease containment measures, and eliciting behavioral changes at the individual and population levels. Historically, structural inequalities have fueled distrust among marginalized populations during pandemics. For populations that are socially and economically marginalized by structural inequalities, misinformation and disinformation that fuel mistrust in public health recommendations during pandemics resonate strongly with their on-going exclusions and experiences. The goal of this grant application is to hold a planning meeting aimed at developing a research agenda to build trust in public health systems among immigrant nomadic pastoralist in the West Africa sub-region. Building trust among this population is key to responding to pandemics and disease outbreaks, as well as the detection and prevention of zoonotic infections since their livelihoods and living arrangements are closely connected to cattle herding. Aligning with the objectives of this funding opportunity, as well as the CCGHR Principles for Global Health Research, the purpose of this proposal is to: a) Bring together a multi-disciplinary team of researchers, health professionals, nomadic pastoralists and policy makers to facilitate partnerships and identify common research interests; b) Enable this team to work together to identify research and intervention priorities related to building social trust in public health institutions and systems in the context of zoonotic disease prevention and outbreaks; and c) Devise a plan for establishing partnerships and leveraging expertise between all stakeholders in order to develop a research agenda. The meeting will form the basis of future grant applications; including leveraging outputs to make grant submissions to CIHR's Project Scheme.