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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1454304
This article is part of the Research Topic Moving Beyond Tokenism: Toward Sustainable Youth Engagement to Improve the Implementation of Public Health Programs and Interventions View all 4 articles

An Innovation Bootcamp Model for Developing Youth-Led HIV Self-Testing Delivery Strategies in Nigeria: Post-Designathon Capacity Building

Provisionally accepted
Ucheoma Nwaozuru Ucheoma Nwaozuru 1*Chisom Obiezu-Umeh Chisom Obiezu-Umeh 2Kadija M. Tahlil Kadija M. Tahlil 3Titilola Gbaja-Biamila Titilola Gbaja-Biamila 4,5Rhonda` BeLue Rhonda` BeLue 6Ifeoma Eugenia Idigbe Ifeoma Eugenia Idigbe 4David Oladele David Oladele 4,5Donaldson Conserve Donaldson Conserve 7Collins Airhihenbuwa Collins Airhihenbuwa 8Hong Xian Hong Xian 9Adesola Z Musa Adesola Z Musa 4Olufunto Olusanya Olufunto Olusanya 5Temitope Ojo Temitope Ojo 5Oliver Chukwujekwu Ezechi Oliver Chukwujekwu Ezechi 4Joseph D Tucker Joseph D Tucker 10,11Juliet Iwelunmor Juliet Iwelunmor 5
  • 1 School of Medicine, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, United States
  • 2 Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, United States
  • 3 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States
  • 4 Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), Lagos, Nigeria
  • 5 School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri, United States
  • 6 University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas, United States
  • 7 Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., District of Columbia, United States
  • 8 School of Public Health, Georgia State University, Atlanta, Colorado, United States
  • 9 College for Public Health and Social Justice, Saint Louis University, Saint Louis, Missouri, United States
  • 10 London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London, London, London, United Kingdom
  • 11 School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction: Many designathons, hackathons, and similar participatory events suffer from minimal training and support after the events. Responding to this need, we organized a health innovation bootcamp: an intensive, team-based apprenticeship training with research and entrepreneurial rigor among young people in Nigeria to develop HIV self-testing (HIVST) delivery strategies targeting Nigerian youth. The purpose of this paper was to describe an innovation bootcamp that aimed to develop HIVST delivery strategies for Nigerian youth. Methods: The four-week, in-person innovation bootcamp, informed by the youth participatory action research and comprised a series of workshops, took place in Lagos, Nigeria. The goal was to build research and entrepreneurial capacities among young Conclusions: This study demonstrated the feasibility and acceptability of the health innovation bootcamp model to create HIVST designed for and led by young people.This suggests a way to build capacity after participatory events to sustain youth-led research, which could have implications for post-designathon training.

    Keywords: HIV self-testing, innovation bootcamp, Participatory Action Research, Young people, global health, Nigeria

    Received: 24 Jun 2024; Accepted: 11 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Nwaozuru, Obiezu-Umeh, Tahlil, Gbaja-Biamila, BeLue, Idigbe, Oladele, Conserve, Airhihenbuwa, Xian, Musa, Olusanya, Ojo, Ezechi, Tucker and Iwelunmor. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Ucheoma Nwaozuru, School of Medicine, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.