Dr. Hubert Amu, a lecturer with the Department of Population and Behavioural Sciences, Fred N. Binka School of Public Health, UHAS and his team have won a $643,000 research grant through the Social Science Research Council’s (SSRC) Mercury Project to carry out a two-year COVID-19 intervention programme.

The project is titled “An mHealth intervention to combat COVID-19 misinformation and improve vaccine attitudes and behaviour in Ghana: A cluster-randomised controlled trial” that seeks to examine the impact of an SMS-based mHealth intervention on vaccine behaviours and attitudes in Ghana. The two-year project will be carried out in four regions of Ghana: Greater Accra, Volta, Northern, and Upper East regions and will tackle the widespread misinformation on the uptake of COVID-19 vaccines despite efforts being made by the government of Ghana and other stakeholders to improve the uptake of vaccines.

The SSRC on Tuesday 23 August announced that it is providing USD 7.2 million to 12 teams working in 17 countries advancing ambitious, applied social and behavioral science to combat the growing global threat posed by low Covid-19 vaccination rates and public health mis- and disinformation. According the SSRC web site, the Council is supporting this first cohort of social and behavioral scientists from around the world to generate “much-needed new research on locally tailored solutions in Bolivia, Brazil, Côte D’Ivoire, Ghana, Haiti, India, Kenya, Malawi, Mexico, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tanzania, United States, and Zimbabwe.”

At the end of the project, it is expected that study participants will develop positive attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination, misinformation will be dispelled, factual information will be disseminated, and COVID-19 vaccine behaviours (including uptake) will be improved. The project is expected to increase trust in medical doctors and the medical establishment.