Level of Cholera Outbreak Preparedeness before and after Health Education and Factors Influencing Cholera Outbreak Preparedness: A Systematic Literature Review

Background and Methods: Cholera outbreaks remain a leading global health threat to public health particularly in Sub Saharan Africa with 1.4 million cases and 25.000 to 142.000 deaths occurring every year (CDC, 2022). A total of 692 cholera outbreaks have been reported in Sub Saharan Africa nearly every year in a span of 20 years from 2010 – 2025 contributing to 90% global burden of cholera (ECDE, 2024). Health educational interventions are often times applied to harness prevention and preparedness for cholera outbreaks (Child et al., 2016; Denue et al., 2017; Dan-Nwafor et al., 2019). Despite of this evidence, effective preparedness for cholera outbreak is habitually missing. This paper presents a systematic literature review of determinants of cholera outbreak preparedness, and, factors influencing preparedness for cholera outbreaks. Results: The review yielded 32 studies, with 16 focusing on determinants of preparedness for cholera outbreaks while 16 studies looked at factors influencing preparedness for cholera outbreaks. Discussion and Recommendations: Most of papers reported on determinants 18 (56.25%) of levels of cholera outbreak preparedness. This is presented by demographic determinants 8 (23.5%) and behavioral determinants 6 (17.64%). This evidence base largely portrays that marginalized communities such as people with a lower education level, the politically marginalized, people living with disabilities did not have a diseases preparedness plan in the household, did not know what to do, were not willing to think about it, and lived in a household whose economic status was low. This body of evidence indicates a pattern of a lower level of infectious disease preparedness. Much as the reviewed studies focus on preparedness, with most looking at natural disasters, some diseases like COVID-19, it has been identifiable that very little attention was placed on cholera. This is a noticeable research gap indicating limited studies on cholera outbreak preparedness