How Media And New Communication Technology Can Be Used To Enhance Health Literacy Among Children At School Age

1
How Media And New Communication Technology Can Be
Used To Enhance Health Literacy Among Children
At School Age

• Dr K Vijaya
• Director
• Corporate Marketing Communication Division
• Health Promotion Board, Singapore

2
Health Literacy

• The degree to which individuals have the capacity
  to obtain, process, and understand basic health
  information and services needed to make
  appropriate health decisions.

3
Importance of Health Literacy

• Improving health literacy is one of the goals and
  objectives set by the U.S. Department of Health
  and Human Services in Healthy People 2010.

4
Application of Health Literacy

• Health promotion
• Health protection
• Disease prevention screening
• Care maintenance
• Access to care navigation of system

5
Benefits of Health Literacy

• Improving the health literacy of school-going
  children will empower them to
• Make the right decisions in their adult age
• Reduce their chances of contracting diseases
• Reduce the need for hospitalisation

6
Promoting Health Literacy in Schools

• Schools play a critical role in building health
  literacy
• Classroom environment is conducive for
  dissemination of knowledge

7
Promoting Health Literacy in Schools

• Disadvantages
• Didactic instructions no longer favored by
  Generation Y
• What is taught in schools (theory) may not be
  applied in practice

• Advantages
• Accurate information provided in a captive
  setting
• Students can be assessed on their knowledge

8
Influence of Media onHealth Literacy

• Youth exposed to mass media, Internet, mobile
  technology
• Youth influenced by peers, celebrities and media
• Consistency of messages taught in schools and
  media

9
Promoting Health LiteracyThrough Media

• International examples
• Weaved into popular US TV shows
• Story of patient suffering from HIV in ER
• HIV-prevention storyline in Bold The Beautiful

10
Promoting Health LiteracyThrough Media

• International examples
• Use of media to educate Canadian youth on health
  risks of tobacco
• Interactive microsite in Australia to teach youth
  how to react to different situations
• US website for youth on sexuality, relationships
  etc

11
The Singapore Experience
12
Opportunities for Raising Health Literacy

• Literacy rate 95.4
• Compulsory education for 6 years at Primary level
• Health education part of core curriculum in
  schools
• Universities and schools require students to
  submit projects and homework online

13
Penetration of Internet Among Singapore School
Children

• 74 of households in public housing and 92 in
  private housing have at least one computer
• 88 of households with school-going children have
  at least one computer
• Computer usage
• 10-14 yrs 85
• 15-59 yrs 68

14
Internet Activities in Singapore
Internet activity 10-14 yrs 15-59 yrs 60 yrs above
For communicating 78 86 61
For getting information 67 81 59
Other information or general web browsing 59 69 25
Playing or downloading online games 58 31 0
For education or learning activities 52 32 28
Downloading or listening to online music 25 35 9
Related to health or health services - 26 69
Creation of own blogs 12 10 5
Reading blogs created by others 4 17 9
Source 2006 Annual Survey on Infocomm Usage by
IDA
15
Singapores Mobile Penetration

• Penetration rate is 106.8
• Some own more than one mobile phone.

16
Traditional New Communication Technology

• Utilised to enhance health literacy among
  Singapore school-going children

17
Multi-channel Marketing
Reach out to Singaporeans
18
Target Groups and Channels Used
Target Group Programmes Channels
Parents with kids Childhood Injury Prevention Programme Hand, Foot Mouth Disease Myopia Parenting magazine, radio, press, television
Kids aged 5 to 12 years Childhood Injury Prevention Programme Hand, Foot Mouth Disease Myopia Television
Youth in Secondary School Youth HIV/AIDs Mental Wellness Press, magazines, radio online outdoor media events
Youth in tertiary institutions STOMP AIDs Smoking for Young Women Peer-to-peer marketing, press, outdoor media, events, electronic mailers
19
New Media

• Initiatives
• HPB Online
• Podcast
• Youth Health Blog
• Audible Heart peer led online counselling
  service
• Mobile initiatives
• Diet Tracker
• Heart Rockz health messages via mobile phones
• SMS Voting

20
New Media

• Other youth microsites
• Healthy Lifestyle microsites
• Food Info Search
• Osteoporosis microsite
• Health Information Centre
• HealthZone
• New youth website

21
Impact of Media New Media Technology on Health
Literacy

• Measured through
• Surveys
• Focus groups
• Pageviews, visits, hits to website

22
In Summary

• Traditional and new media can be used both
  directly and subtly to influence school
  children's behaviour and cognitive thinking on
  health issues.
• Important stage in their lives, when they are
  formulating their own identities and are still
  receptive to learning healthy lifestyle practices.

23
In Summary

• Media and new communication technologies can be
  used to complement existing health education
  strategies implemented in schools.

24
In Summary

• Repeated reinforcement of health messages through
  different channels can increase the rate of
  recall and awareness among school-going children,
  and be more likely to put into practice what they
  have learnt.

25
Acknowledgement

• Mrs Sarojini Thanarajah
• Ms Vanessa Tan

26
Thank You