Figures 8 and 9: Community engagement as a means to promote innovative and inclusive approaches to implementation research for operationalizing the One Health approach among the Maasai in Emboreet Village in Simanjiro District, Northern Tanzania
This project was designed to employ transdisciplinarity while linking ecology, epidemiology, public and veterinary health sciences, sociology as well as community traditional knowledge and targets to scale up implementation of joint interventions on health and environment using a One Health approach. The approach taken for this study ensures that human and animal health, and environmental integrity concerns are addressed in an integrated, multi-sectoral and holistic manner, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the problems and potential solutions that would not be possible with siloed approaches.
Amidst several other VBDs in the Maasai steppe, this project focused on trypanosomiasis, a disease transmitted by tsetse flies affecting humans and cattle. In humans the disease is called Human African Trypanosomiasis or sleeping sickness, threatening millions of people in sub-Saharan African countries, including Tanzania, especially in the Maasai steppe. In cattle, the disease causes African Animal Trypanosomiasis or nagana, an endemic disease in northern Tanzania. The disease significantly affects livelihoods in Maasai households due to frequent cases of abortion and infertility among infected cows, reduced growth rate and a significant drop in milk production and deaths, hence disrupting the production chain and reduced household income.
This project was specifically working with the most vulnerable and marginalized people, the Maasai, in Emboreet village, Simanjiro district in northern Tanzania, who totally depend on the ecosystems they live in for survival. The Maasai people living in northern Tanzania as well as their cattle are severely affected by several endemic zoonotic VBDs. The effects of such diseases are likely to increase, due to socio-ecological and climatic changes. Furthermore, increased populations of people and livestock, agricultural encroachment into wildlife areas, competition for pastures between livestock and wildlife and water scarcity exacerbate the potential for increased burden of these diseases. By closely working with the Maasai people over the last 10 years, we have gained an understanding and appreciation of traditional means of zoonotic disease and climate adaptation, applicable in the Maasai steppe, a typical human-livestock-wildlife interface characterized by abundance flies, cattle and wildlife.
The present study explored best ways to use transdisciplinarity at the human-animal-environment interface in real-life settings in order to reduce vulnerability of the Maasai people to VBDs.
Summary of achievements:
- Community engagement meetings in Emboreet village, Simanjiro District
- Outcome mapping from previous (2016-2019) research interventions in the Emboreet community
- Engagement with collaborative Working Groups nationally and across the African country-network
- Preparation of scientific manuscripts
- Coordination of country activities and progress reporting to the larger International group via monthly zoom meetings.
Progress made towards achieving the project objectives:
Specific objective 1. To build capacity for transdisciplinary research for operationalizing One Health at different levels (community level/extension workers/postgraduates and young researchers).
The thrust of this objective is to build national capacity for implementation research for operationalization of One Health. With the resources available, activities we initiated to bring together stakeholders of the One Health concept and to build a strong team of OH leaders representing different institutions in Tanzania to enhance individual personal skills, and also at institutional and community levels.
Specifically, the following activities were implemented:
- A communication platform using the WhatsApp tool was created to link the team leaders within the country. The platform is used to share relevant knowledge and information between scientists / researchers from different institutions.
- A community engagement activity was conducted (May 2021) in Emboreet village. The community-wide engagement was conducted as a two-way dialogue between a representative group of 25 Maasai elders (who participated in the first phase project of 2014-2018) with 8 researchers (team leaders) to update knowledge from both sides on vectors and disease risk in the Emboreet and neighbouring villages, particularly on tsetse fly density and the disease - trypanosomiasis; and how climate change, land use changes, lifestyle and culture may have posed as risk factors to the sustainability of interventions adopted earlier during phase I of this project. A range of topics were discussed, including emerging health risks from new diseases, with example of COVID-19, for building a ‘community-researcher viewpoint platform’ and creation of awareness of emerging zoonoses.
- One-on-one interviews were done on village market day, involving diverse community members. Each team leader was assigned with a different discussion topic, and topics hinged around project-agreed working group themes such as culture, wealth, gender, tribal values, education in the context of health, climate change, ecology, biodiversity, etc.
- Using a participatory approach, outcome mapping of interventions was done to systematize community experiences on implementation of previously adopted research interventions and their outcomes. The community members said clearly that our previous project was a motivating factor for them to implement community-wide vector control interventions. They reported that interventions from our previous project led to a dramatic reduction of tsetse density. This positive result led to increased cattle and human populations into the village. The populations increase in turn, 3 years post project ending, pushed the Maasai herders to expand cattle grazing areas towards Tarangire National park. Silently the expansion of grazing areas encroached into the human-wildlife buffer zone with Tarangire National park, hence again exposing the cattle and humans to trypanosome-infected tsetse flies. Likewise, the introduction of vector control interventions (traps) during the previous project (2014-2018) over time, silently attracted more human settlements into Emboreet village, resulting into changes of land use patterns. For example, areas close to homesteads, which predominantly were livestock pastures are recently used for cultivation and crop farming. This situation has created shift from traditional land use patterns and is likely to lead to human-animal conflicts as livestock are pushed into wildlife areas.
Specific objective 2. To work closely with all stakeholders and develop a framework for addressing key One Health-based community needs using a theory of change approach (e.g., the human-livestock-wildlife interface and zoonotic diseases).
The researchers in this project had collaborated with TDR, GHGI and project partners in Kenya, Cote d’Ivoire and South Africa to jointly work towards development of a metrics-based assessment using a One Health scorecard. Researchers had contributed to the development of the concept and design through Zoom discussions and meetings. The online platform is operational and has undergone an iterative process of continued improvement and further development. For the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2021, the utility of the scorecard will be further expanded.
