Summary points
The Social Mobilization Action Consortium (SMAC) was Sierra Leone’s largest coordinated community engagement initiative during the 2014 - 2016 Ebola outbreak. It worked in all 14 districts in Sierra Leone across >12,000 communities (approximately 70% of all communities), through 2,466 trained Community Mobilizers, a network of 2,000 mosques and churches, and 42 local radio stations.
We describe SMAC’s Theory of Change and utilization of the Community-Led Ebola Action (CLEA) approach. We present an extensive dataset of community engagement and monitoring with a focus on over 50,000 SMAC weekly reports collected by Community Mobilizers between December 2014 and September 2015.
Community engagement and real-time data collection at scale is achievable in the context of a health emergency if adequately structured, managed, coordinated and resourced.
We describe a correlation between systemic community engagement, community action planning and Ebola-safe behaviors at community-level.
The SMAC integrated approach demonstrates the scope of data – including surveillance data - that can be generated directly by communities through structured community engagement interventions implemented at scale during an Ebola outbreak.
We highlight important insights gleaned over time on how to informally integrate social mobilization into community-based surveillance of sick people and deaths.