Today we’ve posted an essay by Jennifer Gia-Linh Nguyen and Emmy Sun, both of Western University in Ontario, Canada, who are the winners of a children’s outreach challenge to raise awareness of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) — a group of parasitic, viral and bacterial infections that afflict mainly those living in extreme poverty.
The outreach competition and a related writing contest are associated with a Sept. 29-30 Baker Institute conference on NTDs in the U.S. and Mexico. One winning essay will be featured here each week leading up the conference.
The public is invited to attend the Baker Institute NTD conference, but an RSVP is required. Please click here for more information and to register for the event.
Educating children about neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) through interactive role-play activities is an effective way to raise awareness about NTDs, encourage early detection and treatment for these diseases, and decrease transmission. NTDs are a group of diseases that severely affect the world’s “bottom billion.” Approximately one billion people are currently infected with one or more NTDs, while another billion are at direct risk of becoming infected.
Encouraging early detection, treatment and prevention of NTDs is essential for reducing the socioeconomic burden of these diseases. Infection with soil-transmitted helminths, for example, impairs academic performance in young children, which can be reversed following detection of infection and deworming treatment.
Over the past two decades, there have been increasing incidences of NTDs reported in the United States, including Chagas disease, dengue fever and chikungunya. The target audience for our educational strategy is sixth-grade students living in the southern United States, where NTDs are endemic. Sixth-grade students are the ideal population because NTDs are common childhood infections and at this cognitive stage most students are capable of understanding and retaining basic concepts of disease symptoms and methods to prevent future transmission.
We created a sixth-grade lesson plan for a role-playing game to facilitate understanding of NTDs. For this activity, students are placed in groups of eight. In each group, four students will be the “doctors” and four students will be the “patients.” Each patient will be given one of four NTD “patient case sheets” featuring the external symptoms and how the patient acquired the NTD. For example, Chagas disease symptoms and factors contributing to contraction (e.g., poor hygiene or poor housing conditions) will be listed, supported by images of visible symptoms of the disease, such as Romaña’s sign (Bern et al. 2007). Each doctor group will have a “master package” of symptoms, risk factors and transmission prevention methods of all four NTDs. The four patients will each present their case to the doctor group, and members of the doctor group will attempt to “diagnose” the patient.
The doctor group will then inform the patient of available treatments, risk factors and transmission prevention methods for that NTD. Next, the patient group and doctor group will swap sheets and rotate to their right within the classroom — so the patient becomes the doctor for the next round, and vice versa. The instructor has an answer key listing the correct NTD diagnosis for each patient. At the end of the activity, the instructor will review the answers with the entire class. Students will have eight minutes for each NTD case presentation and diagnosis. Total activity time is approximately 60 minutes.
This activity combines a variety of interactive learning methods, such as role-play/situational learning, problem-based/self-directed learning, collaborative learning and audio-visual learning. Research has found that interactive methods for teaching science topics increase lesson material retention when compared to traditional lecture-style teaching methods. The use of role-play/situational learning effectively encourages students to actively engage in the lesson material, keeping students interested. Placing students in a theoretical situation with self-directed learning, where they must problem-solve, further reinforces lesson retention. Role-play and self-directed/problem-based learning also prepare students for future real-life situations where they may be in a similar role of patient or doctor, recognizing symptoms of NTD infection in themselves, or in a relative or peer. Participating in the doctor group provides students the opportunity to actively discuss the lesson material with one another, engaging in peer teaching; this further consolidates understanding of the material.
Collaborative learning also provides additional motivation for students to actively engage in the lesson. Additionally, reading aloud and discussing NTD symptoms and diagnoses
accommodates students who learn better through hearing the lesson material. Visual learning through images of external NTD symptoms also provides a memorable way for students to better envision and retain lesson concepts.
We believe this interactive educational activity will promote awareness of NTDs among youth and engage students in learning more about these diseases. Discussion of NTDs in the classroom will also aid in correcting misconceptions and reducing stigma associated with these diseases. After this activity, students will also learn how to decrease risk of NTD contraction and/or transmission. Similar educational outcomes success has been seen among youth after gaining increased awareness of sexually transmitted disease symptoms and transmission. Other anticipated outcomes include children playing a more engaged role in encouraging others to seeking earlier treatment of NTDs, as well as decreased transmission of NTDs through changes in lifestyle (e.g., more regular use of shoes outdoors in areas endemic with soil-transmitted helminths).
Because NTDs are endemic in the United States and yet often go undetected, raising awareness among youth is a critical step in helping control proliferation of NTDs in the Americas. Youth can play a large role in helping identify NTD cases and decrease the spread of these diseases; early identification of NTD symptoms and medical treatment can help decelerate the progression of chronic symptoms and decrease the socioeconomic impact of these diseases on individuals’ lives. This interactive educational activity strategically uses a variety of learning methods to accommodate different learning styles, promoting student understanding and long-term retention of lesson material. In this way, effective teaching strategies can play a huge role in engaging students to truly learn and retain lesson concepts on NTDs throughout their lives, recognizing NTD symptoms and helping decrease NTD transmission.
Jennifer Nguyen is a doctor of dental medicine (D.M.D.) candidate at the University of Sydney in Australia. She completed her bachelor of science with a specialization in biology and a major in East Asian Studies at Western University in Canada. She is currently a member of the North American Coordinating Committee for the international nonprofit Universities Allied for Essential Medicines (UAEM), and is a founding member of the UAEM chapter at Western University. Nguyen’s work with UAEM introduced her to NTDs, and she has since led youth-driven educational and advocacy initiatives to raise awareness of these diseases and the need for increased innovative research and development for NTD treatments. As a D.M.D. candidate, Nguyen is also interested in oral health and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). She hopes to use her experience with UAEM, NTDs and NCDs to draw a larger picture of the need for increased attention to neglected areas in global health and to further engage youth in taking action to address inequities in access to health care.
Emmy Sun is pursuing a bachelor of medical sciences at Western University in Canada. Sun is a member of the Universities Allied for Essential Medicines and the World Health Organization Neglected Tropical Diseases (UAEM-WHO NTD) working group. She is also a member of the UAEM chapter at Western University, where she first recognized the need for neglected tropical disease education and advocacy. She continues to pursue her passion for global health, and engage her peers in the effort to improve the equitability and accessibility of health care.