Aunty Next Door - A Qualitative Study of Community Prevention and Control for COVID-19

Abstract

Introduction:The Thai government has established public health policies to cope with COVID-19 and reduce the spread of disease by promulgating the Emergency Decree since March 26th 2019 in concept “stay at home, stop the spread of the virus for the sake of nation.” Those measures had been affected to people in all social levels whether it be urban or rural. The objective of this qualitative study was aimed to study the mechanisms and experiences of village health volunteers who work to control COVID-19 at the community level.Method:Forty village health volunteers in the 8th health region were included in the study. Data collection by using focus group discussion combined with audio recordings and the data were analyzed by content analysis.Results:The community’s context in the upper northeastern region of Thailand live in kinship. This is a factor supporting the operation of village health volunteers (VHVs) in the surveillance, prevention, and control of disease in the community. The mechanisms for disease prevention and control in the community are a virtual "Spider web" that connects people in the community, VHVs, Community Leaders, Public Health Officers, and Sub-district Administrative Organization (SAO) officers that operate together. While people in the community, especially "women", act in surveillance in the form of "watchdogs" that report abnormalities of community member movements to the VHV for coordination in surveillance, prevention, and control of disease in their community. The VHV and partners use management guidelines as prescribed by the Ministry of Public Health and adapted to the social and cultural context.Conclusion:The community's COVID-19 surveillance mechanism that mediates kinship begins with fear and panic from a lack of knowledge in the early stages of the outbreak. The kinship of people in the community is one of the strengths and factors of success in preventing and controlling the disease.