My current research question is: how can we create a program which effectively educates

adolescents living in the Lushi Community in Bauchi, Nigeria about tetanus and its prevention?

My research pinnacle project will involve creating programs to educate those living in rural

Bauchi, Nigeria about tetanus. This includes education on what tetanus is, its symptoms, causes,

and prevention. This topic is interesting to me because it deals with both epidemiology and

public health. Epidemiology is something that I have considered as a possible career field, and it

interests me because there will always be new problems to solve within the field. Public health

goes along with epidemiology, and it interests me because public health policies are used to solve

current problems and you can see the impact of what you create. The idea of seeing the impact of

what you create is true for this project. I am doing this project with 4 of my friends through a

program called Leadership Initiatives, which works in Bauchi, Nigeria in various ways. One way

is through implementing public health programs that students, like my friends and I, create

through their international public health internship. So, I will be able to get real-time results of

how my project is impacting my target group, and I will be able to see the actual impact that my

project has. Through this project, I hope to learn more about creating an effective public health

program, and how to create a program that will best serve my client group.?

Balogun, F. M. (2019, August 13). The state of adolescent immunization in Nigeria: a wake up

call for all stakeholders. Pan African Medical Journal. 33(249). The state of adolescent

immunization in Nigeria: a wake up call for all stakeholders (panafrican-med-

journal.com)

This source goes over the causes of the lack of immunization against Nigerian

adolescents against vaccine preventable diseases. A main reason for this lack of immunization is

lack of education about the severity of the diseases, the importance of vaccination, and about
vaccine boosters. There is also not a lot of access to vaccines for adolescents due to the high cost

of vaccines and because vaccination efforts largely focus on young children and pregnant

women, leaving adolescents forgotten throughout the process unless they are pregnant.

This source is reliable because it has been published in a medical journal and it has been

peer reviewed. It was also written by someone who lives in Nigeria and works in the medical

field there, meaning that they have first-hand experience in noticing the observations they have

presented in this paper. The author also supports their claims with already studied research and

statistics that has also been peer reviewed and published in medical journals, making that

research credible as well.

This source is relevant to my research because it focuses on research surrounding my

broad target demographic: adolescents living in Nigeria. It also determines a gap that needs to be

filled by policies like what my group and I might create (education surrounding vaccines). The

article has also presented what groups of adolescents are in the most need for education

surrounding vaccines, providing us with a narrower demographic that we might focus on serving

with our project.

Fan, Z. Zhao, Y., Wang, S., Zhang, F., and Zhuang, C. (2019, May 16). Clinical features and

outcomes of tetanus: a retrospective study. Dove Press: Infection and Drug Resistance.

2019(12), 1289-1293. https://doi.org/10.2147/IDR.S204650

This study observed patients admitted to a hospital for tetanus to determine how tetanus

is treated and what the effectiveness of tetanus treatment is. The study includes observations such

as what caused the admittance for tetanus, which was usually some time of injury, and the
resulting symptoms and complications of tetanus that the patient experienced. These symptoms

included muscle spasms, lockjaw, failure of respiratory muscles, and pneumonia.

This source is reliable because it had multiple people involved with the research and it

was peer reviewed before being published. The authors of this source also work and conduct

research in the medical field. Most of the authors work in general surgery centers, while one

works in a critical care unit, and another is part of a medical university’s graduate program.

This source is relevant to my research because it provides knowledge on the medical

issue that my group and I will be addressing, tetanus. It provides us with knowledge about the

possible medical complications and symptoms that tetanus can cause. This gives us something

that we could focus our project on, for example we could focus on educating people on these

complications to emphasize why vaccination against tetanus is important.

Khan, A. S., Hasan, M. J, and Hawlader, M. D. H. (2023, September 21). The road towards

protection of all against tetanus. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0011611

This source discusses how, while there has been success in tetanus vaccination efforts in

low- and middle-income countries, cases are still high in these countries for a variety of reasons.

One main reason is that the vaccination efforts focus on women and children, leaving men

largely uneducated about tetanus vaccination, and therefore unvaccinated and at the most risk of

contracting tetanus especially if they work in areas where things like rusty nails are prevalent.

The second reason is that people do not know the importance of getting buster dosages of the

tetanus vaccine, leaving people only partially protected from contracting the disease.
 This source is reliable because it has been peer reviewed and has been published in a

scientific journal. It was also written by people who work with medicine and preventative

diseases, with one author being from the Tropical Disease and Health Research Centre in Dhaka,

Bangladesh, and another being a part of the National Institute of Preventative and Social

Medicine also in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Though this source is biased towards the encouragement of

tetanus vaccination, it still credible in that it uses objective evidence and data to support its

claims.

This source is relevant to my research because it presents a gap in tetanus vaccinations in

countries like Nigeria, that my team and I could focus on when creating our project. My team

and I are going to focus on education on tetanus vaccines, so this article can be used to help us

narrow down what demographic we will be targeting with our education programs.

Ogunkeyeda, S. A., Daniel, A., and Ogundoyin, O. (2017, March 29). Paediatric otogenic

tetanus: an evidence of poor immunization in Nigeria. Pan African Medical Journal.

26(177). The state of adolescent immunization in Nigeria: a wake up call for all

stakeholders (panafrican-med-journal.com)

This study collected data over a 5-year period about immunization from children in a

hospital who were being treated otogenic tetanus, a type of tetanus which first symptom is

usually discharging ears. The study found that only half of the patients observed (12) were fully

immunized against tetanus, 6 had not tetanus immunization, and 5 had partial immunization. The

authors of the studied identified lack of education, lack of access to vaccines, misinformation,

and illiteracy as major factors resulting in below optimal levels of childhood tetanus

immunization in Nigeria.
 This source is reliable because it has been published in a medical journal that deals with

public health issues and it has also been peer reviewed. It also presents its data and conclusions

unbiasedly, with the conclusions being supported both by the authors’ data and other published

articles and studies. The data presented in this source is also primary data that the authors

collected themselves, giving them a very close proximity to the data and the ability to make sure

that the data is correct.

This source is relevant to my research because it provides some statistics as to the tetanus

immunization level of children in an area of Nigeria. It also presents possible causes of the below

optimal levels of immunization. This provides my group and I with more factors that prevent the

immunization against tetanus in Nigeria that we could target with our project and research.

Orimadegun, A. E., Adepoju, A. A., and Akinyinka, O. O. (2014, March 17). Prevalence and

socio-demographic factors associated with non-protective immunity against tetanus

among high school adolescents girls in Nigeria. Italian Journal of Pediatrics. 40(29).

https://doi.org/10.1186/1824-7288-40-29

This study measured adolescent girls in Nigeria’s level of immunity against tetanus. It

measured this level of immunity against socio-demographics including parent education level

and type of school the girls attended (private vs. public). The study concluded that the level of

protective immunity in adolescent girls was poor, likely due to lack of receiving booster vaccines

as the girls get older.

This source is reliable because it was peer reviewed and published in a medical journal. It

presents its data objectively, and the authors use this data to support any claims that they make

throughout the source. It supports another one of my sources, “The road towards protection of all
against tetanus,” in that it mentions how lack of immunity against tetanus is likely due to people

not receiving tetanus booster vaccines unless they need them (i.e., they have had an injury that

puts them at risk of developing tetanus).

This source is relevant to my research, because it prevents a group that we can target with

our project. It also opens the possibility of implementing our education programs in schools,

since the authors of the source mention that education programs should be implemented in

schools to promote vaccination against tetanus as girls get older. The program would focus on

the importance of getting tetanus boosters, and how immunity to tetanus decreases over time

without the use of these boosters.