From screening to support: Structured bibliotherapy and community-based well-being programs as adjuncts to the Older Adults with Cancer-Depression Scale.

For hundreds of years, leprosy patients have been a victim of social stigma leading to exclusion from social and economic life. The tantalizing and insensitive reactions from family members, peers, and community people affect every facet of their lives. Despite the elimination of leprosy as a public health problem, leprosy cases continue to occur and, in many cases, cripple the victim. Around 200,000 new cases of leprosy are reported every year []. In 2024, an estimated 172,717 incident cases of leprosy were reported worldwide []. Of them, 9,153 cases (5.3%) had grade 2 disability (G2D) []. But the development of disability could have been prevented, or its progression could have been halted through rehabilitation programs at the community level []. Community-based rehabilitation (CBR) was first initiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) following the International Conference on Primary Health Care in 1978 and the resulting Declaration of Alma-Ata []. People with disabilities, their families, and communities can work together as part of the CBR strategy to establish their rights and get access to the necessary health, vocational, economic, and social services. The Dhaka Community-Based Rehabilitation Project (DCBR) demonstrated that the community-driven development strategies can play an appropriate and gap-filling role in rehabilitating the leprosy-affected people in the working areas where there is a relatively high prevalence of leprosy []. The Global Leprosy (Hansen’s disease) Strategy 2021–2030 aims to achieve a target of zero disease, zero disability, and zero discrimination by 2030 []. To achieve these targets, the CBR needs to be integrated with Primary Health Care (PHC) in Bangladesh. Thereby, rehabilitation services can be easily accessed by the disabled leprosy patients. As CBR consists of medical, social, psychological, and vocational rehabilitation, it can provide comprehensive care to leprosy patients with G2D.