Effectiveness of Community Advocacy on the Uptake of COVID -19 Containment Measures among Adolescent’s With Disability in Kakamega County, Kenya

This study assessed the effectiveness of adapted health communication materials and advocacy interventions on uptake of COVID-19 containment measures among adolescents with disability. Mixed research design was used involving survey and quasi-experimental stud. Advocacy for thorough hand washing & proper putting of masks was done through various types of training, capacity building of community volunteers focusing on adolescents with disabilities and their caregivers. 200 participants aged ten (10) to twenty (20) years old with physical, intellectual and visual impairments from twelve sub-counties of Kakamega County were involved. Instruments of data collection were: Self-structured questionaires, a twelve-week home-based advocacy intervention programme and an adapted health communication material. Chi-square and dependent t-test were used to analyse data at 0.05 alpha levels. Study outcomes demonstrated that majority of the respondents were male (n = 126, 62%) who were aged 13 – 15 years (n = 107, 53%) with a mean (±SD) of 14.30 (±2.45) years. Majority of the respondents belonged to special schools (n = 102, 50%) and were in the class called foundation one (n = 36, 18%). All variables except class (χ2 (DF=15) =30.0, p=0.11) were statistically significant and therefore the associations were not completely due to randomness. Higher proportions of respondents were aware of the origin of COVID-19 in the post-intervention study compared to the pre-intervention The result of the two-tailed paired samples t-test was significant at 0.05, t(216) = -3.42, p