Academy for Educational Development
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AED Hosts Symposium on Health Communication in Fragile States Washington, D.C., July 27, 2005 — Key players in disaster relief, preparedness and development came together at a symposium to examine the role of health communication in fragile states, the most crucial communication challenges that have emerged from recent humanitarian crises, and successful strategies for providing people with the information they need to survive and recover. “Health Communication in Fragile States and Humanitarian Emergencies,” was held at the Academy for Educational Development in Washington, D.C., in conjunction with George Washington University’s Center for Global Health. Health Communication in Fragile States USAID Medical Officer Clydette Powell spoke about the need to coordinate between the military, civilian, and humanitarian community. She urged participants to ask, “Is our work in the health sector contributing to stability?” Panelists then discussed the role of health communication in addressing emergencies in Haiti and promoting infant and child feeding during crisis situations. Emergencies increase young children’s risk of chronic and long-term malnutrition. According to Judy Canahuati, a USAID maternal and child health advisor, one of the main goals of health communication should be ensuring health workers have accurate and up-to-date information about infant feeding. Canahuati highlighted the important role AED has played in supporting the development of training materials that have been used to bolster infant feeding during emergencies. Communication Challenges in Humanitarian Emergencies Using communication efforts in Aceh, Indonesia in the tsunami’s immediate aftermath as an example, Shannon Doocy of the Johns Hopkins University’s Center for International Emergency Disaster and Refugee Studies, pointed to wide efforts to communicate across all organizations as a successful strategy. Rapidly spreading rumors, a common occurrence during humanitarian emergencies, can affect the flow of accurate information to vulnerable populations, according to UNICEF’s Heidi Larson. Larson explained that some of the best ways to manage health rumors are to be “honest and prompt in providing risk information to affected publics and to listen to people’s concerns.” Commenting on the lessons the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) learned from Angola’s recent Marburg virus outbreak, Marsha Vanderford of the CDC’s Coordinating Center for Health Information Services pointed to several challenges that effective communication strategies can help to address: namely a distrust of government efforts, a fear of international teams, and the practice of reusing syringes.
While the panelists focused on the need for increased health communication, keynote speaker and CNN journalist Frank Sesno addressed the challenges and dangers surrounding media coverage of humanitarian crises. Sesno cited “information, examination, investigation and recrimination/accountability” as the four essential components of reporting on disasters. He warned that while the tsunami “illustrates brilliantly the potential for people around the world to share an experience in terms of awareness and immediate action,” the media’s constant focus on the bottom line and the fragmentation of television audiences can lead to sensationalism. Despite those challenges, Sesno emphasized the need for sustained media coverage of relief and humanitarian emergencies and told participants that the rising popularity of Internet news sites and other “nontraditional” media represents an opportunity for those working in the field to connect with different audiences. Role of Media and Technologies in Humanitarian Emergencies Other speakers discussed the innovative use of new information technologies during humanitarian emergencies. Michael Tetelman, senior program officer at the AED Center for Applied Technology, explained that mobile telephony and personal digital assistants (PDAs) have many applications during disaster relief efforts and long-term recovery of affected areas. He gave the example of a coastal town in India warned by cell phone of the imminent tsunami which then used its public address system to successfully evacuate its 6,000 residents. PDAs are useful for sending information from the field about emergency response needs to different groups and facilitate coordination among them. “It’s about the process of making things more streamlined and improving the response time,” said Tetelman. Emergency Preparedness In the day’s final session Dan Rutz from CDC and Beth Casey Devries from the American Red Cross shared specific strategies and tools the two agencies have developed to communicate the potential risk of a new global flu pandemic and train volunteers to prepare for and respond to different types of disasters. “The symposium reminded all of us that we need to do a much better job at reaching the people directly affected by a disaster with health information that is timely, practical, and reassuring --and that may save their lives,” said Mark Rasmuson, Vice President and Director, AED Center for Global Health Communication and Marketing. Founded in 1961, AED (www.aed.org) is one of the world’s foremost human and social development organizations. It operates more than 250 programs to help people improve their lives through better education, health, and economic opportunities in 80 countries and all 50 U.S. states. ### |
