Review of Journalism & Mass Communication

Community Participation in Design and Implementation of Health Campaigns in Nyando Sub County
Jonai Wabwire, Charles Nyambuga, Adams Yakub

Abstract
Media disseminates health information through many ways among them health campaigns. Media health campaigns are central to people's ability to acquire knowledge for better health. As such there has been a marked increase in the number of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and governmental agencies running health campaigns in Nyando Sub County. With the various forms of media in use in these health campaigns, it is expected that the communicated messages would impact people positively and greatly reduce health problems being propagated. This, however; might not mostly be the case. Hence, the question of how community participation helps towards the design and implementation of health campaign calls for in-depth consideration. Subsequently, there is need to unravel to what extent the community should effectively participate in health campaigns design and implementation of appropriate media. It is on this ground that this study purposed to examine the influence of community participation on health campaign design and implementation in Nyando Sub County. The study population included 38 NGO managers, 6 chiefs, 17 assistant chiefs and 30,439 household heads totaling to 30,500 respondents. Fisher’s formula was applied to find sample size of 379 for the households. Random walk technique was then used to get the 381 households. For NGO heads, chiefs and assistant chiefs, purposive sampling was applied to get respondents hence sample sizes of 11, 4, and 6 respectively at saturation levels. Interviews and questionnaires were employed in data collection. Data from households was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as cross tabulation and frequencies. Data from NGO managers and chiefs was brought together using themes to explain findings. Issues discovered as a result of categorizing and sorting data were developed. Study findings showed that there is low level of participation in design and implementation of health campaigns in Nyando Sub County. As such there is participation in decision making, problem identification, community mapping, media programmes and budgeting aspects of the campaign. Participation in Nyando Sub County is beyond nonparticipation and is challenged bynonparticipation culture, financial constraints, self appointed leaders and accountability issues. It was noted that it is not easy to achieve high levels of participation since campaign planners are not aware of those levels and their understanding of participatory approaches is scanty. As such this study concluded that campaign planners should regard community participation as key to improving health communication interventions that improve health outcomes of the target community. In this light the study recommended that NGOs and governmental agencies should create enabling environment that incorporates community’s needs and aspirations through decentralization of management and decision making responsibilities including participation of local people.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/rjmc.v3n2a1