School-based health education campaign - a potential tool for social mobilization to promote the use of DEC-fortified salt towards elimination of lymphatic filariasis

Community compliance is crucial for the success of mass treatment using cooking salt fortified with diethylcarbamazine citrate (DEC) for the elimination of lymphatic filariasis (LF). We describe the role and effectiveness of school-based health education for social mobilization to promote the use of DEC salt, in an endemic district in India. Health education through classroom sessions was the main motivational strategy used. Community members were targeted to receive the message through children. The impact of this approach was assessed among students and community members using an interviewer-administered questionnaire and analysis of salt samples for DEC content from households. Significant improvement in awareness on LF among students and community respondents was observed. School health education (SHE) could promote the use of DEC salt by 19% points more in households with children in schools covered under health education campaign [campaign school (CS)] compared with others. Significantly higher proportion (72.7%) of samples from households with children in CS had detectable DEC, indicating the impact of the intervention on enhancing the use of DEC salt by the community. The results exemplify that SHE is a potential tool for improving and sustaining compliance, thus serving as part of a public health strategy to eliminate LF using DEC salt.