Strategic Communication in Health and Development: Concepts, Applications and Programming

Abstract

Significance of communication in health and development is well recognised. Strategic communication informs, educates and influences. In addressing varied health and development issues, including the challenges involving diseases control, more targeted communication strategies are designed to make optimum use of available resources to achieve the planned results in a given context. Based on research, that is, the community-based study of risk factors and the operational research, communication theories evolved and so did the strategies and practices for result-driven health and development communication. In this article, some approaches have been examined to better understand the role of strategic communication in development and health, including disease control. Information dissemination through ‘extension approach’, first for agriculture development and later for family planning, adapted and boosted through advertising and marketing frameworks led to wide awareness about the methods and techniques of family planning but not the adoption at the same levels. Experience and research studies demonstrated that mere ‘awareness’ was not adequate for fostering adoption of ‘new’ practices; instead, it required sustained investments in communication for social and behavioural change processes. For this, bottom-up communication design, participatory communication with community involvement, evidence-based advocacy and preparedness for risk communication are required for effective communication and health and development. As HIV/AIDS posed an initial challenge for communication scholars earlier in the 1980s, so is the COVID-19 pandemic throwing a major communication challenge today. The article attempts to analyse the approaches and shed light on the role of communication in health and development, especially in the context of health crisis.