Malaria prevention and control innovation based on design thinking and social marketing in malaria elimination management by local administrative organization

Abstract

The objective of pilot study was to design local malaria prevention and control innovation by making use of malaria warning sign “Beware of Malaria Carrying Mosquito Bite” for persons with occupational and behavioral risks and malaria caution sign “Protect against Malaria Carrying Mosquito Bite” for vulnerable persons, pregnant women, pre-school aged children and rubber tappers. This study employed Stanford’s design thinking and social marketing to provide storytelling of designed signs to 30 purposively selected samples (15 males and 15 females) between January and February 2018 in pilot areas where the malaria outbreak occurred in Nakha Subdistrict, Suk Samran District, Ranong Province. Both malaria warning and caution signs were considered a communication tool essential for increasing awareness of malaria vector among at-risk persons. Based on assessments of participants’ attitudes toward these malaria safety signs, the results clearly indicated that the samples had achieved a high level of average scores for all questions regarding delivered pictures, messages, and colors. In addition, this also implied that the samples had positive attitudes toward using malaria warning sign (yellow plate) rather than malaria caution sign (blue plate). Meanwhile, there was no significant difference in mean scores between males and females with respect to the attitudes of using the malaria safety signs-be it picture, message, or color tone -- with different at-risk persons in the communities. Gender-specific issue did not influence the attitudes of the people and hence all genders could have an equal access to malaria prevention and control innovation, which is economically considered as non-excludable and non-rivalrous public goods for the consumers.