random-rumblings

Advertisements are such a powerful mass media for sending across important public policy and in particular public health messages. I wonder why this has not been fully utilised in our country.

For health, as well as for many other areas of development, individual and social changes are necessary for attaining sustained health improvement. Individual change by itself is usually the expected outcome of health promotion programs, especially those dedicated to a single health problem such as the use of oral rehydration therapy to reduce childhood diarrhea, immunization programs, family planning programs, condom promotion for HIV/AIDS prevention, and mosquito-net use. The urgency of the problem, the initiative taken by centralized agencies, the concentration of resources, the specific focus, and the concrete and limited nature of the behavior to be changed, all increase the efficiency and likelihood of success. It is not surprising to find, therefore, that individual behavior-change programs are quite common in the field of public health. By design, however, the outcomes are limited to a single, specific aspect of health. As a consequence, some individual behavioral change may even be limited to a short duration in time unless other measures are taken to ensure that such changes are institutionalized and self-sustaining.

Oral rehydration solution (ORS) for the treatment of diarrhea, a leading cause of infant mortality, underscores these issues. ORS has saved millions of lives, but the alternative solution of hand washing with soap, improvement of latrines and clean water within the community as a whole would be expected to have a greater impact on childhood diarrhea than the treatment of one child at a time with ORS after an infection occurs, especially if some of the ingredients of ORS are not always available.

Health communications could solve this larger problem by addressing the issues of hygiene and prevention of diseases. The maxim of prevention is better than cure is apt here. And, as this proposal suggests, prevention can be brought about by a properly planned and coordinated action of government, media and private enterprise.

While the government takes care of the specific needs as envisaged in their annual plans based on the urgency of the situation, a neutral health communications organisation could deal with the broader issues with a well thought out communications strategy. A P3model can be explored because it needs an eclectic combination of the private and the public sector to succeed. First, it needs legitimacy with all stakeholders, and therefore a not-for-profit model would gain trust and credibility. Second, there is a need for a combined action from government, bureaucracy, common people and professionals – therefore, a mixed model is indicated. Third, it needs competence in multiple disciplines – healthcare, public governance, education, and communication, all of which are hard to come by, exclusively either in the public or the private sectors.