Effectiveness of community health communicators in relation to disease and health risk communication in the area of the Office of Disease Prevention and Control Region 3 Chonburi, 2011-2013

Abstract

It is essential that the people in the community acquire health knowledge, attitude, and behavior and multi-sectional collaboration for the sustainable change. This acquisition requires risk communication pro¬cess so that the community can prevent and control the disease in a timely manner. Therefore, this study aims to develop a risk communication model for behavior modification in relation to disease surveillance and control by the community's effort. Methodology: the participatory action research, or PAR, and appreciation influence control, or A1C, were used and the research divided this study into 3 phases from 2011-2013. The participants were public health officers, subdistrict administrative organization (SAO)'s officers, teach¬ers, public health volunteers, community leaders, and community media representatives from Prachinburi province. Results: in phase 1, the participants were able to collaboratively communicate the risks to their community members based on the health knowledge taught during the program. This has greatly enhanced the performance of Surveillance and Rapid Response Team, or SRRT. As for the community members, they received the health information faster and resulted in positive behavior modification at the individual and family level. In phase 2, the community could analyze and evaluate their own communication efforts, leading to improve in the future efforts and develop of a project monitoring procedure. In phase 3, a news center was established at a subdistrict health promoting hospital and the growth of participants in village news alliance was also found. Those outputs are considered as a sign of sustainable change in the community risk commu¬nication. The 3-phase program showed that, when there were community health risk communicators, disease prediction, observation, communication, and case reporting would be considerably more effective. The public health officers then could better assess the risk, investigate the case, and identify the disease control measure. Also, both the community and officers could learn the lessons from one another through knowledge manage¬ment techniques.