Effect of a football-based mass media campaign intervention on awareness and knowledge of neglected tropical diseases in Nigeria: a propensity score matching analysis

ABSTRACT

Nigeria accounts for the largest burden of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) in Africa with over 128 million people requiring treatment. In the fight to end NTDs, influential football stars with large followership have been used to support campaigns targeted at eliminating NTDs. END Fund supported a mass media campaign featuring William Troost-Ekong, an influential Nigerian footballer to promote uptake of NTD preventive treatment. The goal of the campaign was to ensure that more people seek treatment for these devastating diseases. The study was aimed at evaluating three intermediate outcomes of The END Fund NTD mass media campaign: knowledge, awareness and ideation. The evaluation was based on a cross-sectional study design using propensity score matching methodology. A structured questionnaire was used to elicit information on exposure to the mass media campaign; and a multi-stage stratified random sampling approach was used to select households across study locations. We estimated the effect of the campaign on awareness, knowledge, and ideation between exposed and unexposed respondents based on the average treatment of the treated. Participants who were exposed to the campaign were more likely to have a high level of awareness, this was 14pp higher than among the unexposed; and it was statistically significant. Similarly, exposure to the NTD campaign resulted in a high level of knowledge by 13%, this was also significant. For ideation, there was a moderate increase, and this was significant. In conclusion, this study reinforced the effectiveness of using influential football stars to deliver public health campaigns.

KEYWORDS:

• Neglected tropical diseases
• william troost-ekong
• END fund
• centre for communication and social impact
• propensity score matching
• football

DeclarationsEthics approval and consent to participate

The study was approved by Nigeria’s National Health Research Committee (NHREC) in line with established guidelines of the Federal Ministry of Health, with approval number NHREC/01/01/2007-19/11/2019.

Detailed information about the study was communicated clearly to eligible participants, and informed consent was obtained before the commencement of the field study. Respondents were notified about confidentiality and ease of voluntary withdrawal from the study. The data was anonymized, and all personal identifiers were coded and would not be available to the public. Only individuals 18 years and above were interviewed during the study, non-consenting individuals were not interviewed.

Availability of data and materials

The dataset used in this study is available from the corresponding author on request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The entire study was funded by END Fund, a leading philanthropic investment vehicle with a mission to control or eliminate diseases that affect the world’s poorest people. The END Fund is a 501(c)(3), tax-exempt charitable organization registered in the United States (EIN 27-3941186) and a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (company number 6350698) and a UK registered charity (number 1122574).