Save Africa: Using Public Health Media Advocacy

Health has repeatedly been shown to be an indicator of development in any economy. This is not because of the need to use health directly or primarily as an economic boost criteria, but simply because according to reality, health presents as a basic need without which no economy can even progress to start with.
Good Health indicators make the predictions of effectiveness and productivity more positive. Hence, every nation/economy needs to achieve availability, accessibility and effectiveness of health care to be 'healthy enough' to be productive.

Now another big question would be,

what are the ways to achieve boost in health indicies?

In this article we will concentrate on the use of media advocacy.
Public Health ensures that the prevention/ actions /interventions for health are targeted towards the larger population of interest. To do this, the need for prevention is prioritized - at primordial, primary, secondary and tertiary levels.

Media advocacy is a very useful tool in promoting preventive health for a population. This has been proven by numerous researches, that when people are reached and followed up on media as well, they tend to more easily pick up the knowledge shared. People respond readily to what they see over and over, compared to what they heard once at the clinic premise. These visual impressions can be greatly achieved using the media.

Media use must be clear, and must try to indicate what is to be adopted, how it works, and the benefits. Usually public health emphasises the advantage of prevention over cure in both cost and other implications. Where there is adequate media advocacy, people get more conscious of the need for preventive health measures.
Effective media advocacy requires the blend of scientific and simple-to-understand self-learning aids with audio-visual creativity. Meaning:
In Public Health media advocacy,

1. Methods should be clear
2. Steps should be easy to understand
3. Feedback should be encouraged
4. Innovation should be used
5. Resultant success of the advocacy
   should be evaluated.

In Summary: *As a public health professional, I believe Africa has the prospect and potential to achieve high points of development which requires the support of good health indices, and in tbis age, good health is largely improved by adequate public health media advocacy.

(Photo credit: Shalom' (writers') personal galleries)

.. Stay tuned to @yowanetwork for more on this series..

-Shalom'Shalom (via yowanetwork)

Thanks for the inspiration @nairadaddy @ejemai @tojukaka @aerick @sushie @gee1 #air-clinic #cros #busy #zappl