Health Advocacy Campaign

Health advocacy campaign

Introduction

A new concept in health promotion that has emerged is health literacy. It focuses on improving health literacy through communication and health activities, (Nutbeam, 2000).

During the recent years, there have been positive changes in the way how medial health problems are being communicated. Health issues are now becoming more problematic as there is a lack of awareness among many populations of the world. It is important that the people need to be reminded of how certain health issues can be prevented through proper care, and most importantly health concerns arising from obesity, smoking and other activities that are making people all over the world suffer from its effects, need to be effectively communicated. Public health communication is defined as the usage of various techniques for influencing populations to promote awareness regarding health issues, (Maibach, 1995).

Health advocacy campaign aims at promoting awareness among the populations regarding a certain health issue, so as to keep the population healthy and proactive. We will be focusing on Diabetes, a serious health concern in the South Asian region of India. India has some alarming numbers; about thirty three million of the entire Indian population is diabetic, (Ramachandran, 2005). Health campaigns send a positive message that it is not uncommon for people to be involved in work that requires them to help others, (Christoffel, 2000).

Discussion

Identification of the problem

Diabetes is a serious health issue worldwide. Over 300 million people are suffering from it. What is even more concerning is the fact that South Asia is on the verge of exploding with diabetes. The results in India are alarming. What makes it worse is that the huge chunk of the Indian population that resides in rural areas, are not even aware of this disease. Thus there is a dire need to double the efforts for spreading the awareness.

Advertisement campaign is an effective way for reminding people about this disease. It is expensive; however, it is a very useful way for spreading awareness.

Objectives

The objective of our campaign is to spread awareness regarding diabetes by communicating its causes and prevention, all over India.

Attributes of the program

The attributes of the campaign aim to assist the physicians and medical institutes through the following:

Making members understand the tests and medication by assisting the nurses and physicians, and discussing the necessary steps that can be adopted under difficult situations.

Arranging for the equipments all over the major hospitals and clinics, mostly in the less developed areas as well as making arrangements for home care equipments

Communicating the root causes and possible care regarding diabetes among the rural population through advertising campaigns. Working closely with the NGOs and also involving the local celebrities. It will also focus on involving all the print media and visualizations

Launching advertisement campaigns, involving the local NGOs and celebrities

Marketing the web page of the campaign, as to force people to visit it. The idea is to spread as much awareness about the diabetes campaigns, as possible

Visiting the local communities for spreading the ...