By Emmanuel Uko

Inside Ajegunle market, two traders stood beside a small medicine stall discussing a persistent cough affecting one of their family members. One of them reached for antibiotics she had used before, convinced they would “work again.” Before she made the purchase, another trader nearby politely interrupted the conversation. 

She explained why antibiotics should not be taken without proper medical advice and how misuse could make infections harder to treat in the future. The woman who intervened was not a doctor or pharmacist. She was a DRASA Health Champion, an everyday member of the community equipped to promote preventive healthcare practices and responsible health behaviors. Both the information she shared, and the ease with which the other traders listened to her stood out. In that moment, social trust and familiarity carried more influence than authority.

Public health campaigns often focus heavily on information dissemination, assuming that awareness alone automatically changes behaviour. Yet people are more likely to act on health information when it comes from someone they know, relate to, and interact with regularly. In the market, the trader accepted the correction not because it came from an institution or a sensitization campaign, but because it came from someone within her social environment who understood her realities. In this case, DRASA’s Health Champion model continues to show, first, that familiar local voices often succeed where distant sensitization messaging struggles.

Secondly, communities already possess powerful models for influencing behavior; they simply need intentional support and guidance. The Health Champion in the story did not suddenly become influential because of training. Her influence already existed through her relationships, daily interactions, and position within the market community. The Health Champion training helped channel that existing social capital toward healthier outcomes. From DRASA’s work, this shows that effective prevention may not always require building entirely new structures; it mostly requires strengthening the positive influence already present within communities.

Thirdly, prevention is relational before it is technical. Scientific facts matter, but long-term behaviour change often grows through repeated conversations, peer influence, and practical examples embedded within everyday life. A short discussion between traders may appear insignificant, yet such moments gradually shape community norms around health decisions. From DRASA’s field experience when prevention becomes part of ordinary conversations in markets, schools, transport hubs, and homes, healthier practices become easier to sustain.

Lastly, resilient health systems are built not only in hospitals or policy rooms, but within communities themselves. The market trader in this story became part of the health system the moment she used knowledge and familiarity to help protect another person. Prevention becomes stronger when ordinary people stop seeing health as the responsibility of institutions alone and begin seeing themselves as active defenders of community wellbeing.

Disease prevention does not happen in health facilities alone; it counts on individuals who can promote healthy behaviors, identify risks early, and connect communities with formal health services. This is DRASA’s Health Champion model - equipping individuals, communities, schools, health facilities, youth and the civil society, to function as sustainable drivers of infection prevention. 

As countries continue to address infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance, and emerging health threats, integrating the Health Champion model into existing health structures is a practical pathway to expanding prevention efforts, improving health outcomes, and making disease prevention a shared responsibility across society.

DRASA Insights is a learning series that distills practical lessons, reflections, and evidence from our work of developing Health Champions and advancing disease prevention across communities, schools, health facilities, and decision making spaces.