Co-designing tobacco control health communication with young people in Southern Nigeria

Abstract

Co-design is a participatory approach that seeks to increase end users’ involvement in designing products and services. However, there is a lack of active participation by young people in the design of tobacco control health communication, especially in African countries. This thesis has therefore engaged young people in determining and designing tobacco control health communication to inform campaign interventions. A scoping review was conducted first to map the types of health communication focused on young people in Africa. Data sources included 20 peer-reviewed papers, WHO Global Health Observatory on anti-tobacco mass-media campaigns for 54 African countries, and 6 WHO Framework Convention reports on Tobacco Control. The review revealed the limited participation in tobacco control health communication design by young people. To address this gap, a co-design approach using creative methods (drawing and writing, group discussions, diary) was employed. Two secondary schools in Benin City were involved in the research, with eighty-nine participants segregated into seven groups (13-19 years) engaging in 4 interconnected phases of the co-design process. The co-design process involved engaging participants in: (1) Discovery, to identify the root causes of smoking using a problem tree; (2) Idea generation, to generate communication ideas to address the identified causes using the socioecological model as a template for idea generation and message framing; (3) Ideation and prototyping, to create a health communication roadmap, including a song, twelve poster designs, and a short film using the generated ideas and messages (4) Feedback, to review co-designed materials which led to the short film being transformed into an animation. From a co-design approach and the use of creative methods, this thesis showed that participants can actively be engaged in tobacco control health communication design in Nigeria, for example via schools. It also revealed that tobacco control campaigns focused on young people could be enhanced textually and visually to align with three key themes; the health consequences of smoking (Seeing is Believing), peer influence (Just Try it: Shades of Influence), and influence of authority figures (Positioning Authority Figures: Dimensions of Power). This thesis has demonstrated that young people are willing to inform health interventions that will impact their lives when they are made aware of the opportunity, and using a process inherently built for sharing knowledge and power. This thesis moreover contributes one of the first examples of a participatory study using co-design in tobacco control health communication with young people in Nigeria and Africa.