Developing a Health Communication Strategy in a Developing Country Essay

Nora: Health Communication in the Developing World

Health Communications Strategies in the Developing World

There are clearly myriad challenges working toward global health equity in the developing world, particularly in sub-Saharan African countries such as Sierra Leone where rapidly-accelerating HIV / AIDS rates are compounded by political and civil unrest and the looming specter of the colonial legacy. In such resource-poor settings, it is extraordinarily challenging to provide even the basic level of medical care or education. In settings where the distribution of supplies, medical personnel, and long- or short-term aid is not possible, the dissemination of health information can be the first line of defense in mitigating current health crises and preventing new ones from emerging. Health-related communication is a relatively low-cost health intervention requiring less person-to-person contact than direct care. While health media can never replace medical care, it is a stop-gap measure that can critically intervene when harmful medical myths are being disseminated (Maxfield 1999).Some public health theorists favor an approach to medicalization in underdeveloped countries which focuses upon the strategic use of "appropriate technologies" -- opting for lower-cost, less technologically advanced health solutions even if they are less effective than other options. The ideology behind the application of "appropriate technologies" is that the limited financial and physical resources can be allocated across a wider population. This would prevent smaller pockets of health disparity from emerging within these developing countries, a serious reality which could exacerbate already-delicate political, social, cultural, and economic tensions often afflicting countries coping with chronic poverty and the post-colonial transition (LeFebvre 1988).

The 'appropriate technology' model of public health work in developing countries is contested by many medical anthropologists and other academics and clinicians working in these same areas who are proponents of approaching health from a human rights and social justice-based healthcare model. One of the leading theorists….....