Social science research in malaria prevention, management and control in the last two decades: An overview

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In the recent past, considerable progress has been made in understanding how human behavior and social organization, macro- and micro-level economic processes, and health and political systems affect responses to malaria at global, national, community, household, and individual levels. Advances in malaria-related social, behavioral, economic, evaluation, health systems, and policy (social science) research have resulted in improvements in the design and implementation of malaria prevention, management and control (PMC) strategies. Indeed, the past two decades chronicle dramatic advances in the implementation of evidence-based interventions, drawn not only from biomedical but also from social science research. Malaria awareness-raising, advocacy, case management, and prevention efforts have reaped the benefits of social science research and as a result, many programs are implemented and evaluated in a more effective manner than in the past. However, the pace at which findings from social science research are integrated into program and policy implementation is unsatisfactory. Additionally, examples remain of programs that fail to utilize findings from social science research and as a result, achieve minimal results. Furthermore, there is a sizeable body of knowledge that is underutilized and which, if assimilated into programs and policies, could accelerate progress in malaria PMC. Examples include information on meaningful community participation, gender, socio-economic status, and health systems. Regrettably, although social science input is necessary for almost all interventions for malaria management and control, the numbers of scientists working in this area are dismal in most of the key disciplines—medical anthropology; demography; geography and sociology; health economics and health policy; social psychology; social epidemiology; and behavior-change communication. Further, skills of program workers charged with implementation of interventions and strategies at country level are most often inadequate. The Special Program for Research and training in tropical diseases (TDR) and the multi-lateral initiative on malaria (MIM) have remained in the forefront of capacity building for this area of research, but additional efforts are needed to bring more applied social scientists into the fold. Their skills are necessary to ensure that social science findings get to program planners and implementers in a useful form that allows for more rapid and appropriate integration of the results into malaria PMC programs and policies. A re-thinking of the current focus within capacity building efforts is proposed.