Co-design of locally adapted communication materials to boost engagement around water sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) in a Community in Ibadan, Nigeria

In limited-resource settings with rapidly increasing populations, inadequate access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) remains one of the greatest challenges. This exposes communities in these settings to waterborne health risks including zoonotic helminths and water-borne bacteria, among antimicrobial-resistant germs. Many diseases have the potential to first spread from the environment or an animal to a person and then from one person to another through contaminated hands. The so-called diseases of dirty hands have several ways of spreading as contamination may occur through human-to-human contact, human-to-animal contact, or even contact with contaminated surfaces and tools. To be more conscious about the challenges of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), members of the community need to arrive at a shared understanding of how their individual actions have an impact on the health of their immediate environment and others around them. However, this is often difficult due to diverging interests, a lack of proper representation of affected stakeholders, and a lack of proper communication channels. This study focuses on the use of a participatory approach called territory mapping to mobilize the implicit and explicit knowledge of different actors to build a shared representation of their reality. It is a transdisciplinary process that facilitates knowledge sharing and the generation of new knowledge to support learning, negotiation, and planning. Based on the knowledge obtained, communication materials were co-designed with the stakeholders to act as reminders of particular social behaviours that increased WASH-related risks (Fig. 18.1).