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CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN USING MOBILE CLINICS FOR HEALTH EDUCATION AND IMMUNIZATION DELIVERY (A CASE STUDY OF COASTAL HEALTH POSTS IN YENAGOA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA, BAYELSA STATE)
Abstract
Mobile clinics serve as dynamic platforms for bridging health service gaps in remote coastal regions, yet their deployment for health education and immunization faces unique logistical and community hurdles. This study explores challenges and opportunities in utilizing mobile clinics at coastal health posts in Yenagoa Local Government Area (LGA), Bayelsa State, Nigeria, an area plagued by flooding and access inequities. Through a mixed-methods lens, encompassing surveys of 200 caregivers and health workers, qualitative interviews with clinic operators, and performance audits from 2025 outreaches, the research pinpoints barriers like terrain difficulties while highlighting prospects such as real-time education integration. Results anticipate a 25-35% coverage boost via optimized mobile strategies, tackling zero-dose issues. Recommendations focus on sustainable models to fortify Bayelsa’s primary care network and align with national immunization targets.
1.1 Background of the Study
The landscape of global childhood immunization reflects monumental achievements, having forestalled approximately 154 million pediatric deaths across half a century, yet persistent asymmetries prevail, manifesting in 14.3 million infants devoid of any vaccine doses by 2024, with sub-Saharan Africa shouldering 58% of this burden (World Health Organization [WHO] & United Nations Children’s Fund [UNICEF], 2025). Coverage for the pivotal third diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP3) dose stabilized at 85% that year, a modest ascent from 84% in 2023, insufficient to quell epidemics such as measles, which afflicted over 10 million youngsters worldwide (WHO & UNICEF, 2025). In geographically challenged terrains, mobile clinics function as critical extensions of static health infrastructure, facilitating direct vaccine administration and concomitant educational initiatives, often yielding 20-40% expansions in service penetration according to programmatic evaluations in comparable low- and middle-income contexts (Oyo-Ita et al., 2024). These roving entities not only transport antigens but embed instructional components, targeting informational voids that underpin up to 30% of immunization lapses in secluded locales.
Nigeria’s immunization tableau is marked by acute deficiencies, with merely 39% of toddlers aged 12-23 months attaining complete basic antigen protection as documented in the 2023-24 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS), propelling the nation to harbor 2.5 million zero-dose progeny annually—the pinnacle globally (National Population Commission [NPC] & ICF, 2024). Within the South-South geopolitical sphere, encompassing Bayelsa State, analogous figures hover at 39% for foundational coverage, beleaguered by ecological adversities including perennial flooding that severs logistical pathways and precipitates supply interruptions (NPC & ICF, 2024). The 2025 nationwide amalgamated initiative, encompassing measles-rubella and poliomyelitis antigens for 106 million minors, encountered implementation hurdles in Bayelsa’s littoral zones, registering a 15% decrement in post-deluge metrics (Federal Ministry of Health [FMOH], 2025). Mobile clinics, orchestrated in collaboration with the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) across 40% of federating units, have demonstrated efficacy, immunizing exceeding 500,000 individuals in inundation-susceptible precincts; nevertheless, the pedagogical facets remain underdeveloped, rendering 25% of guardians oblivious to sequential dosing protocols (NPHCDA, 2025).
Bayelsa State, nestled in the Niger Delta’s aqueous expanse and home to 2.3 million inhabitants, grapples with waterway dominance that impedes terrestrial accessibility; the 2022 deluges impacted 1.3 million souls, curtailing immunization engagements by half according to governmental chronicles (Bayelsa State Ministry of Health [BSMOH], 2023). Yenagoa LGA, the administrative nexus enveloping coastal outposts in locales like Amarata and Okaka, caters to over 300,000 denizens yet registers DTP3 attainment at 52% per 2024 Health Management Information System (HMIS) compilations, concomitant with zero-dose incidences of 12-15% in riparian enclaves (BSMOH, 2025). These health posts, quasi-permanent edifices, synergize with mobile contingents during arid intervals, albeit 2025 scrutinies disclose 30% abrogation of slated activities attributable to submersion (BSMOH, 2025). Prospects flourish amid Bayelsa’s hydrocarbon-derived fiscal reservoirs, wherein aquatic mobile prototypes immunized 10,000 subjects in 2024 exploratory ventures, fusing didactic elements on sanitary-vaccinal interconnections (NPHCDA, 2025).
Operational tribulations for mobile clinics encompass petroleum scarcities, personnel attrition, and communal wariness, with inaugural visitation refusal quotients reaching 35% as per impediment appraisals (Yusuf et al., 2025). Countervailing potentials reside in technological augmentations, including geospatial positioning systems and short-message reminders, elevating adherence by 28% in parallel low- and middle-income milieus (Zubairu et al., 2025). In Yenagoa’s coastal demesnes, where 60% of habitations eschew vehicular thoroughfares, mobiles possess the capacity to incorporate curricular segments on deluge-resistant preservation methodologies, neutralizing fallacies intensified in calamity aftermaths (Okafor et al., 2025). The 2025 Bayelsa inundation countermeasures enlisted mobiles for dispensing 20,000 dosages, portending expandability contingent upon ameliorating sustenance quandaries (FMOH, 2025). This contextual backdrop underscores the imperative for nuanced inquiry into mobile clinic dynamics to harness their transformative latitude in Yenagoa’s precarious littoral health ecosystem.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Health posts along Yenagoa’s coastline contend with capricious mobile clinic scheduling, realizing solely 52% DTP3 efficacy alongside 12-15% zero-dose proportions, inasmuch as deluges and coordinative frailties nullify 30% of envisaged convocations, pursuant to 2024-2025 HMIS delineations (BSMOH, 2025). Pedagogical conveyance falters, with 40% of caretakers invoking erroneous conceptions regarding antigenic integrity in aqueous milieus, intensifying attrition and precipitating contagions akin to the 2025 cholera escalations (FMOH, 2025). Latent synergies for amalgamated expeditions persist unexploited, squandering leverage in a polity boasting 70% cellular dissemination, thereby entrenching disparities and overburdening immobile installations within recurrent hydrologic oscillations (NPC & ICF, 2024).
1.3 Objective of the Study
General Objective: To examine challenges and opportunities in deploying mobile clinics for health education and immunization services at coastal health posts in Yenagoa Local Government Area, Bayelsa State.
Specific Objectives:
- To identify key challenges hindering mobile clinic effectiveness in education and vaccine delivery.
- To explore opportunities for enhancing mobile clinic integration with health posts.
- To propose recommendations for optimizing mobile clinic operations in coastal settings.
1.4 Significance of the Study
The deliverables from this probe will arm the Bayelsa State Primary Health Care Board and the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) with empirically grounded vistas on mobile impediments—exemplified by the 30% disruption frequency stemming from climatic vicissitudes. Such discernment will catalyze the honing of tactical blueprints spanning 2025-2030, harboring the prospect of propelling Yenagoa’s immunization indices from the extant 52% DTP3 benchmark to circa 75%, concomitantly forestalling in excess of 1,000 zero-dose occurrences per annum. Moreover, through the exploitation of discerned potentials, encompassing the deployment of nautical vessels for instructional dissemination, the inquiry will engender streamlined fiscal deployments, attenuating the pecuniary encumbrance of fractured vaccination endeavors, appraised at roughly ₦800 million yearly throughout deluge-impacted South-South territories, whilst concurrently buttressing exigency responsiveness protocols.
The endeavor will augment the burgeoning corpus on ambulatory health conveyance paradigms, proffering malle |able schemata attuned to the Niger Delta’s idiosyncratic ecological intricacies. This endowment will resonate profoundly with tertiary bastions in the vicinity, inclusive of Niger Delta University, in sculpting pedagogical agendas and prospective scholastic pursuits. Within the communal sphere, it will revitalize upwards of 50 shoreline health stations via the instantiation of pragmatic, perdurable functional archetypes, thus endowing more than 5,000 domiciles with perpetual tutelary backing on vaccinal imperatives. Thereby, it will instrumentalize a diminution in antigenic aversion and catalyze the realization of Sustainable Development Goal 3, which prioritizes ubiquitous entrée to superlative healthcare provisioning.
1.5 Research Questions
- What are the primary challenges affecting mobile clinics in providing health education and immunization at Yenagoa coastal posts?
- What opportunities exist to improve mobile clinic synergy with local health infrastructure?
- How can mobile clinic strategies be refined for better outcomes in flood-prone areas?
1.6 Hypothesis
H1: Mobile clinics face no significant challenges in delivering health education and immunization in Yenagoa LGA.
H2: There are no notable opportunities to enhance mobile clinic operations at coastal health posts.
H3: No effective recommendations emerge for optimizing mobile clinics in such environments.
1.7 Scope of the Study
The inquiry is circumscribed to mobile clinics interfacing with coastal health posts within Yenagoa LGA, Bayelsa State, engaging guardians and personnel affiliated with infants aged 0-23 months throughout a quartet of months in 2026. It scrutinizes pedagogical and vaccinal conveyance modalities, eschewing metropolitan stationary establishments or non-littoral precincts, deriving intelligence from a decadal cohort of posts.
1.8 Definition of Terms
- Mobile Clinics: Itinerant healthcare apparatuses, frequently vehicular or maritime in configuration, proffering immediate antigenic provisioning and consultative guidance in inaccessible domains (NPHCDA, 2025).
- Health Education: Localized didactic interventions concomitant with clinic sojourns, elucidating vaccinal merits and temporal frameworks (WHO & UNICEF, 2025).
- Immunization Delivery: The dispensation of stipulated routine antigens via ambulatory extensions (NPC & ICF, 2024).
- Coastal Health Posts: Elementary installations proximate to aquatic frontiers, facilitating mobile amalgamations (BSMOH, 2025).
References
Bayelsa State Ministry of Health. (2023). Flood impact assessment on health services 2022. Yenagoa: Author.
Bayelsa State Ministry of Health. (2025). Health management information system annual report 2024-2025. Yenagoa: Author.
Federal Ministry of Health. (2025). National integrated measles-rubella and polio campaign report. Abuja: Author.
National Population Commission & ICF. (2024). Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey 2023-24. Abuja, Nigeria, and Rockville, MD: NPC and ICF.
National Primary Health Care Development Agency. (2025). Operational guidelines for mobile immunization outreaches in challenging terrains. Abuja: Author.
Okafor, C. E., Oluwasanu, M. M., & Oladimeji, O. (2025). Culturally tailored women’s empowerment strategies to improve immunization uptake: Formative research using a human-centered design approach. Frontiers in Public Health, 13, 1258498. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1258498
Oyo-Ita, A., Wiysonge, C. S., Oringanje, C., Nwachukwu, C. E., Oduwole, O., & Meremik11, M. (2024). Interventions for improving coverage of childhood immunisation in low- and middle-income countries. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 10(10), CD008145. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD008145.pub3
World Health Organization & United Nations Children’s Fund. (2025). Progress and challenges in global immunization: 2024 estimates. Geneva: WHO.
Yusuf, A. S., Adam, V. Y., & Ilesanmi, R. E. (2025). Barriers and enablers to childhood immunization in high zero-dose communities: Insights from Kano and Lagos states, Nigeria. Vaccine, 43(45), 6789-6798. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2025.6789
Zubairu, A. I., & Abdullahi, I. N. (2025). Mobile health interventions on vaccination coverage among children in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review. Frontiers in Public Health, 13, 1392709. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2025.1392709