Impact of radio health education on members of radio listening club’s knowledge on health issues in Malawi
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Date
2022-05-09
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Kamuzu University of Health Sciences
Abstract
This is a radio project which aims to provide health education to Malawians through
community radio stations.
The problem with Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19), a lot of community outreach activities done by the nursing faculty of Kamuzu University of Health Sciences (KUHeS) were affected as they involved physical meetings with the communities. One such activity
is the provision of health education to communities. This activity helps nursing faculty
of KUHeS to reach many Malawians with different health information which helps
Malawians to adopt health life styles to promote their health, prevent illness and seek
health care early. It has been observed that due to fear of being diagnosed with
COVID 19 and being vaccinate people delay and avoid seeking medical care from
other COVID-19 non related conditions which has led to people reporting late to
health facilities with complications which could be prevented.
Recently, virtual ways of doing things have been adopted in many sectors just to
ensure that different needs of Malawians are met and that life continues in the new
normal. As such, we would like to continue with our community outreach activities
through use of community radio programs. With this arrangement, we will be able to
reach many Malawians with different health information that will ensure that
Malawians adopt health life styles to promote their health, prevent illness and seek
health care early. In addition, we will also assist the government of Malawi in
sensitizing Malawians on COVID-19 related information which includes prevention
and management, motivate people to get COVID-19 Vaccine and empower people
with information on the following: depression, burns, sanitation innovation and
mental health. We will also address stigma that is coming in due to COVID-19 and
mental illnesses in our communities. We plan to run call in programs where listeners
will interact with subject experts from KUHeS. This will also enable us to understand
the community health needs and address them accordingly.
We would like to focus on community radio stations because they are located in rural
areas and this will help us reach out to people in hard to reach areas who do not
have access to quality information in a timely manner. We plan to implement this
project in six community radios. Two radio stations in each of the three regions of
Malawi. Each radio station will air the program twice a month.
Broad objective
To provide health education to Malawians through community radio stations.
Specific Objectives
By the end of the radio health education project, we should be able to:
1. empower radio listeners with knowledge on different disease conditions such
as: COVID 19 condition, mental health, depression and burns.
2. Sensitize radio listeners on the importance of getting a COVID-19 vaccine.
3. Share different sanitation innovative methods with radio listeners.
Methodology
The project team members and other selected content experts will provide health
information through phone in programme in six selected community radio stations.
Health education topics to be provided include: Covid-19 condition, Covid-19
vaccine, mental health issues, sanitation and innovation and burns.
Expected findings and dissemination
We expect that through the radio interactions between radio listeners and health
experts, this project will lead to identification of research areas in different
communities that the radio stations serve. The process followed will be presented at
national and international conferences and will be published in peer reviewed
journals. A report will be submitted to College of Medicine Research and Ethics
Committee and the project funders.
Description
Keywords
Impact of radio health education on members of radio