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Effect of Community Health Noticeboards on Awareness of Disease Prevention Measures among Residents in Nigeria

Abstract

Awareness of disease prevention measures is an important component of public health because individuals who understand common health risks and preventive practices are better positioned to adopt behaviours that reduce exposure to illness. In Nigeria, residents may have inadequate access to timely and reliable health information because of low health literacy, limited access to health professionals, language barriers, misinformation, and differences in access to digital communication platforms. Community health noticeboards provide a simple and potentially cost-effective method of displaying health information in locations regularly visited by community members, including markets, schools, community centres, worship centres, transport areas, and primary healthcare facilities. Noticeboards may provide information on hand hygiene, immunization, malaria prevention, sanitation, safe water, respiratory infection prevention, healthy lifestyles, and other locally relevant disease-prevention measures. Against this background, this study investigates the effect of community health noticeboards on awareness of disease prevention measures among residents in Nigeria. The study will be anchored on the Health Belief Model, Health Literacy Framework, and Social Ecological Model. The Health Belief Model explains how perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers, and cues to action may influence residents' awareness and adoption of disease-prevention measures. The Health Literacy Framework emphasizes the ability of individuals to access, understand, evaluate, and apply health information when making decisions about disease prevention. The Social Ecological Model recognizes the influence of individual, interpersonal, community, institutional, and environmental factors on health information access and preventive health behaviour. Collectively, these theoretical perspectives provide a suitable framework for explaining how community health noticeboards may influence awareness of disease prevention measures among residents in Nigeria. The study will adopt a quantitative quasi-experimental or analytical cross-sectional research design. The study population will comprise adults aged 18 years and above residing in selected communities across Nigeria. A multistage sampling technique will be used to select geopolitical zones, states, local government areas, communities, neighbourhoods, and eligible residents. Community health noticeboards will be assessed using indicators such as availability and visibility of noticeboards, frequency of health-message updates, location, readability, language used, use of pictures and illustrations, relevance of displayed information, message clarity, coverage of disease-prevention topics, duration of message exposure, and involvement of health professionals or community health workers in developing the content. Awareness of disease prevention measures will be assessed using indicators such as knowledge of hand hygiene, safe water practices, sanitation, immunization, malaria prevention, respiratory infection prevention, food safety, sexually transmitted infection prevention, healthy lifestyle practices, early healthcare seeking, and other locally relevant preventive measures. Data will be collected using structured questionnaires, health-awareness assessment tools, noticeboard observation checklists, photographs or records of displayed health messages where appropriate, and relevant community health programme documents. Descriptive statistics will be used to summarize participants' characteristics, exposure to noticeboards, and awareness scores. Inferential statistical techniques, including chi-square tests, t-tests, correlation analysis, and logistic or multiple regression analysis where appropriate, will be used to determine the effect of community health noticeboards on awareness of disease prevention measures. Where a quasi-experimental design is adopted, awareness scores before and after installation of health noticeboards may be compared with those of a comparison community to determine changes associated with the intervention. Diagnostic tests will also be conducted to assess the reliability, validity, and robustness of the findings. The study is expected to find that community health noticeboards have a significant positive effect on awareness of disease prevention measures among residents in Nigeria. Residents who are regularly exposed to clear, accurate, visible, and locally relevant health messages are expected to demonstrate greater knowledge of disease-prevention practices than residents without comparable exposure. Repeated exposure to simple messages, visual illustrations, and information presented in commonly understood languages may improve residents' recognition of health risks and preventive measures. Noticeboards may also complement other community health education activities by providing information that residents can review repeatedly at their convenience. However, outdated information, poor noticeboard visibility, inadequate maintenance, low literacy, language differences, vandalism, limited message updates, misinformation, and insufficient community engagement may reduce their effectiveness. The study therefore expects strategically located, regularly updated, culturally appropriate, and professionally developed community health noticeboards to contribute significantly to improved awareness of disease prevention measures among residents in Nigeria. The study is expected to contribute to the literature on community health communication, health noticeboards, disease prevention awareness, health literacy, health promotion, community health education, and public health in Nigeria. The findings will provide useful information to the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, state ministries of health, local government health authorities, primary healthcare centres, community health workers, health educators, community leaders, development partners, and policymakers regarding low-cost approaches to strengthening community health communication. The study will also provide evidence-based recommendations for establishing strategically located community health noticeboards, improving the design and readability of health messages, using local languages and culturally appropriate illustrations, updating information regularly, involving healthcare professionals in message development, and integrating noticeboards with broader community health education and disease-prevention programmes across Nigeria.

Keywords: Community health noticeboards, disease prevention, health awareness, health communication, health literacy, health promotion, community health education, preventive health practices, disease prevention measures, Nigeria, public health.