TDR

Vector-borne
diseases in Africa

Sector

Health and environment

Discipline

Data visualisation and infographics
Publication design and layout
Website and app development
Communications strategy
Branding and visual identity
Video and animation production
Digital and social media

The background

Lushomo has worked with several UN health-research partners over a number of years, helping teams to share their research with policymakers, communities and other stakeholders. Although many countries have managed to eliminate vector-borne diseases such as malaria through treated nets and indoor residual spraying, some countries have recently experienced a resurgence of vector-borne diseases, making research – and dissemination of the findings – more important than ever.

The brief

To communicate the work of five research projects on vector-borne diseases under conditions of climate change.

Our response

This project involved extensive interaction with the researchers, including a number of meetings, site visits and regular engagement. Together with the researchers, we experimented with new product formats and created a variety of communication products. These included a website, regular news items, information briefs, brochures, presentations, banners, posters, animations and GIFs.

Website
We produced this website which could visually communicate links between vector-borne diseases and climate change.

See more website and app development

Posters and presentations
‍We turned researchers’ raw data and reports into simple, accessible materials, such as posters and presentations.

See more data visualisation and infographics

Technical advice
We also provided technical advice to the researchers in development information briefs to share with health and environment ministries. We met with a range of partners, including those within Ministries of Health and Environment, and visited those working on the ground to hear about their challenges and experiences in research communication.

Our work for this project took us to Congo, Kenya, Switzerland and South Africa. Tom Scalway, Lushomo’s lead consultant, addressed the project’s Research Uptake Meeting, and shared Lushomo’s observations about continued engagement, research uptake and the future of the VBD Environment online platform with the research teams, project partners, country delegates and WHO AFRO representatives.

GIFs
‍We experimented with new products and created a series of GIFs. We continuously maintained the Twitter activity of the @vbd_environment Twitter handle to share news from the research teams. This space was also used to share the informative GIFs and videos that we created in consultation with the research teams.