The Role of Community Participation in Planning and Executing Malaria Interventions: Experience from Implementation of Biolarviciding for Malaria Vector Control in Southern Tanzania

Background. Malaria remains a disease of great public health importance in 85 countries globally. Developing countries face resource constraints in implementing public health interventions aiming at controlling malaria. Promoting community participation may contribute to rational and effective use of resources and therefore facilitating achievement of intervention goals in a cost-effective manner while fostering sustainability. However, this can be possible if the community is engaged at all stages of the intervention, from designing, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of results. This study aimed at understanding community participation in the implementation of a biolarviciding intervention for malaria vectors control in Southern Tanzania. Methods. The current study adopted explanatory mixed method study design in collecting data. Quantitative data were collected from 400 community members and 12 vector control coordinators using structured questionnaire while qualitative data was collected through key informant interviews to 32 participants and in-depth interviews to 5 vector control coordinators who were purposively selected from the 12 councils. Quantitative data analysis involved descriptive and inferential statistics. Thematic analysis was used to analyse qualitative data. Results. Of 400 community members, only 90 (22.5%) participated in biolarviciding implementation. Predictors of community participation were willingness to participate (AOR = 3.15, 95%CI = 1.14 - 8.71, P value = 0.027) and community involvement (AOR = 6.07, 95% CI = 2.69 - 13.71, P value < 0.001). The study revealed that the main barriers to community participation were lack of effective involvement and lack of incentive to community volunteers while high willingness to participate was a facilitating factor for community participation. Conclusion. The study revealed low community participation in biolarviciding implementation in Southern Tanzania with willingness to participate and community involvement being the main predictors for community participation while lack of incentive to community volunteers was one major barrier to community participation. This explains the persistence of an unresolved challenge of community participation in malaria interventions. Therefore, more efforts are needed to improve the participation of community members in Malaria interventions through advocacy, awareness creation of respective roles, and responsibilities of the community members and fostering community ownership. Additionally, councils need to design customized motivation package for the community members.