DESCRIPTION

Full Title: SunamganjCase Station for Avoidable Deaths

Duration: 2025 to present

Principal Investigator: Dr Fatima Akter (Associate Professor, University of Dhaka)

Support team: Ms Sadia Afrin Sayfa Negaban and Mr Mohammad Fahimul Islam (ADN Future Leaders)

The Case Station for Avoidable Deaths (CaSA) is an initiative of the Avoidable Deaths Network (ADN) that aims to promote social learning at the community level. CaSA stations bring together local communities, health and disaster responders, practitioners, and policymakers to examine avoidable deaths deaths that need not occur if appropriate knowledge, awareness, and action are in place.

Objectives

1. Build disaster risk awareness at the community level, starting with school-age children, using participatory engagement rather than passive instruction.
   
2. Reduce avoidable deaths from lightning and flash flood-induced drowning in the haor region of Sunamganj, where these hazards are recurring and seasonal.
   
3. Establish a CaSA — the first of its kind in Bangladesh — as a platform for social learning among communities, health and disaster responders, and policymakers.
   
4. Create LANs to generate locally grounded solutions to locally identified disaster risks.
   
5. Leverage children as safety messengers, extending knowledge from classrooms into households and the wider community.
   
6. Support long-term monitoring, with a planned five-year follow-up to assess impact on preparedness behaviours and mortality rates.