Discussion of Health Education and Digital Media Opportunities.

By Simon Batchelor, Feb 2003, for the Health Foundation of Ghana Workshop on

“Health Education in Ghana – Can Digital Media offer anything new?”

 

Health education and Ghana

 

Recently the Ghana Health Service announced that it will strengthen its network for Health education, extending government services down to communities.  Health education is an important element in general health provision, helping people to make clear informed choices regarding their health. 

 

An example of the potential of good health education can be found in children's diarrhoea.  Globally 3,000,000 children under five die of diarrhoea every year.  Of these, many could be saved if their parents made a more informed response to their condition.  The knowledge to prevent these deaths exists.

 

Health education can best occur when a mix of resources are applied.  The book “Practicing Health Education and Health Promotion in Ghana” (2002) suggests that health education is “a combination of learning experiences, designed to facilitate voluntary adaptations of behaviour conducive to health”.    The book emphasises that it is a mix of methodologies or learning experiences that leads to behaviour change. 

 

Ghana faces tremendous challenges in resourcing health education.  We need to explore all the possibilities for supporting health workers, including the potential new technologies. 

 

New Technology for communication

 

There are examples where new technologies have “leapfrogged” over older technologies making information transfer or communication easier and cheaper.  A clear example of this is the mobile phone.  While the challenge of laying new telephone land lines were holding many countries back in their business communications, we have seen mobile phones become commonplace in recent years.  Another example might be the way word processing has replaced typewriters. 

 

So what are the opportunities for health education? 

 

When information technology is discussed, the first thing that comes to mind is the internet.  Certainly the internet is making global communication easier, but for most people it remains elusive.  Particularly when connections are poor it is difficult to find  information on the internet, even more difficult to find information relevant to the average Ghana community and what information is available is not necessarily in a contextualised form and in the right language.  Try this experiment – try to find a page on the internet that would show a Ghana farmer how to vaccinate his or her cow.

 

What is required is local production of “local”content, ie content that is relevant to local people, in the right language, and is in a context that people can readily identify with. 

 

Digital Video – new opportunities

 

One of the technologies that has changed a lot recently, and holds the potential for a “leapfrog” in our health education work is digital video. 

 

Video has been used in the past in development and in particular health education.  Some videos are already available in Ghana, for example the series of the Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana.  There has also been the use of videos in other countries as a means of participation and advocacy – communities making their own videos to explain their difficult living conditions to others. 

 

But in the recent past the technology had certain disadvantages.  These disadvantages are disappearing.

 

In the past editing a video needed specialised equipment.  Making a video was a major exercise – often requiring a specialist camera crew with all the associated costs, and specialist editing and production.  The final product was a master video tape which could only be copied so many times before it was worn out, copies of copies were not possible without severe loss of quality, and if changes were required they were expensive.

 

Currently Digital Video is easy to produce.  With a little skills training almost anyone can learn how to make a simple video.  Editing can be done on any modern personal computer, and very little “specialist” equipment is required.  This is a recent development.

 

And the resulting video is becoming easier to deliver.  It can be put onto tape if required but there are also new possibilities arising all the time.  Small digital video players can be as low as $50, carried in a handbag and used with simple AA batteries.  Such devices, although not currently common in Ghana, will gradually become common as the world moves away from tape to digital.  The digital players can repeat videos so a player could be placed in the waiting room of a health centre and repeat its message to each new group that is waiting.

 

 

Older video technologies

New video technologies

Production

Tended to use professional cameras

 

Cameras are available in any electronic shop

 

and therefore professional people

With a little training cameras can be used by anyone

 

Edited in a suite with specialist equipment

Videos can edited on a suitable PC, (by anyone with a little training)

 

Produced a master tape that could only be copied a certain number of times and was expensive to change if necessary

Produces a digital file that can be copied as many times as necessary, in many different forms, and can be changed (re-edited)

Delivery

Tended to delivered on analogue tapes,

Output can be delivered on analogue or digital

 

which could not be copied easily, and which would decay in humid conditions.

Digital media is tough, copies of copies can be copied, and does not decay in humid conditions

 

Players were bulky and delivery to a poor community tended to need a lot of preparation and equipment.

New digital delivery available – small, portable, cheap, menu driven, can be repeated.

 

Digital Video and Health education.

 

So how can this new technology be used?  We propose that people familiar with the problems and issues in communities be trained in the use of cameras, and a few key workers be trained in the editing and production of videos.  The editors remain close to the fieldwork and clients, and are therefore able to contextualise the videos, change them as policies and ideas change, and keep the video relevant to Ghana. 

 

The delivery of the videos can be through a mix of outlets.  Health workers can carry the small battery operated players into the field, and use peoples own televisions (or their neighbours) to deliver short health messages that can then be discussed (a moving flipchart).  Health centres, schools or places of public gathering, can play the videos.

 

This is just one new opportunity presented by the changes in digital media.  This is one tool in our mix of strategies for health education and is not intended to be a “catch all”.  The Ghana Health Foundation working with IICD, Gamos, and DGIS will explore new approaches in health education as they become possible.  We are committed to excellence in health education and in serving the people of Ghana in the best way possible, we are problem orientated not solution driven.  However in 2003 we are undertaking a programme to explore digital video as a means for health education and would invite anyone interested to contact us and perhaps co-operate in the programme.  

 

 

 

By Simon Batchelor, Feb 2003, for the Health Foundation of Ghana Workshop on

“Health Education in Ghana – Can Digital Media offer anything new?”