INTRODUCTION
Genome Adventures is an innovative National Institutes of Health/Wellcome Trust funded community engagement initiative of the Collaborative African Genomics Network (CAfGEN). Collaborative African Genomics Network (CAfGEN) is a Human Heredity & Health in Africa (H3Africa) affiliate. Over the years, community engagement has emerged as a key area in developing best ethical practice for researchers involved in H3Africa and CAfGEN developed Genome Adventures comic books as part of community engagement.
OBJECTIVES
Genome Adventures comic book series aims to communicate, engage and educate young adults, policy makers, biomedical scientists readers on the history of heredity and genetics (Book 1), the structure and function of DNA and genes (Book 2), the link between genomics and health (Book 3), and the process for enrolling in a biomedical research study including ethical issues pertaining to informed consent, sample shipping and storage, and community engagement (Book 4).
METHODOLOGY
Participants were randomly selected; boys and girls of the same age group from participating junior and senior schools. The comic books were piloted in schools in Gaborone, Botswana. Participants were given a pre-test before reading the comics to find out how much they know about genetics and research. After reading the Genome Adventures comic books, participants were given the same test. The data was analysed using Microsoft Excel.
PRELIMINARY RESULTS
We compared the results before and after reading the comic book and found out that there was a significant improvement of marks on the post test. A remarkable change is shown among students of Gaborone SSS.
Based on the test scores, one may conclude that the comic books may be useful as part of the school curriculum as the level of knowledge increased significantly.
Next step: To write more comics on other diseases. To diversify engagement models that bring upon mutual benefits with industry.