On April 15, 2026, at the Vaccine Day 2026 Student Poster Competition held at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the research poster by Iijima et al.,
titled “Shared Reflection across Communities on Malaria Vaccine Communication: A Workshop with Community Health Workers in Ghana,”
was awarded Second Place.
This research was based on a malaria vaccine communication workshop conducted in Ghana on April 9, 2026. The workshop aimed to identify the communication challenges that community health workers face in their daily interactions with caregivers, and to generate new insights into strategies and practices for building trust with local communities. It also served as an opportunity to connect community-based practice with knowledge from global health.
The poster was likely recognized for its relevance not only to Ghana, but also to other settings facing similar vaccine-related communication challenges, as well as for the potential applicability of its insights beyond malaria vaccines.
Our organization will continue to learn alongside communities and work toward promoting trust-based immunization and addressing the challenges faced by zero-dose children.
