Promising practices for the collaborative planning of integrated health campaigns from a synthesis of case studies

A combination of public health campaigns and routine primary healthcare services are used in many countries to maximise the number of people reached with interventions to prevent, control, eliminate or eradicate diseases. Health campaigns have historically been organised within vertical (disease-specific) programmes, which are often funded, planned and implemented independently from one another and from routinely offered primary healthcare services. Global health agencies have voiced support for enhancing campaign effectiveness, including campaign efficiency and equity, through collaboration among vertical programmes. However, limited guidance is available to country-level campaign planners and implementers about how to effectively integrate campaigns. Planning is critical to the implementation of effective health campaigns, including those related to neglected tropical diseases, malaria, vitamin A supplementation and vaccine-preventable diseases, including polio, measles and meningitis. However, promising approaches to planning integrated health campaigns have not been sufficiently documented. This manuscript highlights promising practices for the collaborative planning of integrated health campaigns that emerged from the experiences of eight project teams working in three WHO regions. Adoption of the promising practices described in this paper could lead to enhanced collaboration among campaign stakeholders, increased agreement about the need for and anticipated benefits of campaign integration, and enhanced understanding of effective planning of integrated health campaigns.