The Prevention and Screening Innovation Project towards Elimination of Cervical Cancer (PRESCRIP-TEC) won the Community Choice award in the Knowledge Sharing poster competition at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GADC).
The poster, in comic form, presents a story about patients who benefit from the PRESCRIP-TEC cervical screening project.
The Poster Competition
The annual GACD scientific meetings are the major knowledge-sharing and networking event for researchers and partners working with the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases (GACD).
During the 2022 Annual Scientific Meeting, the GACD ran an academic poster competition for which the assignment was to showcase research in an informative and creative poster aimed at non-scientists. PRESCRIP-TEC participated in this competition and won the Community Choice Award.
‘We were asked to design an informative and creative poster for non-scientists. About 200 scientists from all over the world, who participated in the conference, chose our poster as the most informative poster about the implementation of the research we are conducting.’
Dr. Jaap Koot, MD at the UMCG.
While viewing the Knowledge Sharing Competition poster displays, attendees shared and discussed challenges and successes in the implementation of their research projects. This is a great way of learning and creating empowerment.
Our colleagues Dr. Naheed, Mgr. Melichová, Dr. Nakisige, Dr. Koot, and Dr. Caroline were present to share their knowledge and experiences in PRESCRIP-TEC with other project teams. This was an excellent opportunity for networking in the field of cervical cancer prevention.
Creating a story about PRESCRIP-TEC patients
The communication team decided to portray the real-life story of PRESCRIP-TEC patients. The aim was to illustrate, in comic form, all that might occur, before and after screening for cervical cancer in vulnerable populations in lower and middle-income countries.
It was stories like that of Glorious’ cervical screening story, which encouraged the team to approach the competition through storytelling. Stories spread easily, but it is also important to consider the sensitivity of the people that one is going to talk about. In the process of creating the comic, the team took these four steps in story-telling into account:
- Develop characters: Four main characters – a patient who is HPV positive, her friend who exemplifies a patient without HPV, the health worker, and the nurse.
- Manifest a purpose, an adventure, or create a journey: The journey of cervical cancer screening in a hard-to-reach setting.
- Write an intriguing, relatable plot: The main character finds out that she is HPV positive and has precancerous lesions.
- Show the denouement: The main character is out of risk and she becomes a cervical screening ambassador.
In developing the poster the team took into account the needs of the health teams in the field. Ashas, Village Health Team members (VHTs), Friendship Community Members (FCMs) and Health Visitors all reported that, for their communities, it is easier to explain cancer prevention and what the project is about, when they have visual materials.
About PRESCRIP-TEC and the GACD
The GACD brings together major international research funding agencies to specifically address the growing burden of chronic diseases in lower and middle-income countries and the vulnerable populations of high-income countries. The GACD Research Network of investigators is active in more than 73 countries around the world. PRESCRIP-TEC is part of the GACD cancer programme.
The Prevention and Screening Innovation Project towards Elimination of Cervical Cancer (PRESCRIP-TEC) is contributing to effective and innovative cervical cancer screening, including direct treatment of lesions, for women in resource-poor or hard-to-reach settings in the world.
The project is researching an innovative approach to screening using HPV self-tests conducted at home and an artificial intelligence decision support system during gynaecological examinations. In the first months of screening, there has already been a high uptake of the HPV test and successful follow-up of women who tested HPV positive.
PRESCRIP-TEC expresses its appreciation to the scientific community for voting their poster into the winning place and also for sharing their knowledge and experiences. Furthermore, many thanks to the teams of the PRESCRIP-TEC’ project’s work packages as this poster was the result of sharing knowledge among everyone involved in PRESCRIP-TEC.
For more information, please visit:
https://prescriptec.org/project-overview/
https://umcgresearch.org/w/prescrip-tec
https://gacd.org
