Results of Community Action against Leprosy Stigma in Uttar Pradesh

An intervention research was carried out in UttarPradesh with an objective to experiment community action against leprosy stigma. Methodological significance of this project was to design and implement programmes against leprosy stigma is by the community itself. Village committees were formulated as desired by the community members. These committees were responsible for program designing and implementation and also the quantitative assessment of the results of community action in terms of reducing stigma faced by the patients. For assessing the change pre and post intervention data was collected from two districts of experimental area and one district of control area, regarding Interaction with members of Family, Society, Workplace, Accessibility of civic Services, Accessibility to common social facilities etc of the leprosy affected individuals. Results shows that out of total 39 variables of interactions studied from the above areas, patients' condition improved in 36 and deteriorated in 3 in the experimental area against 21 and 18 respectively in the Control area, which specify the areas of critical importance which community has to pay more attention. It is concluded the community action is the ultimate means of achieving success in stigmatized disease programmes like leprosy as there is a visible positive change in the experimental area against the negative change in the control area which signified the deterioration of the situation concerning acceptance of leprosyaffected over a period in the absence of any social inputs addressing them.