The AudienceScapes Ghana survey has highlighted the importance of word-of-mouth networks for sharing and interpreting many types of information. Indeed, word-of-mouth looms large for health issues, with 70 percent of all survey respondents saying that they discuss health with others.

Chart 1

More than two thirds of survey respondents said these discussions take place regularly (“often” or “very often”) with friends and family, surpassing the number citing frequent health talks with work or school colleagues and with doctors; health discussions with community elders and traditional healers rated low on the scale (Chart 1). However, when asked about the trustworthiness of health information provided by various sources, doctors rated as high as more-frequently-consulted friends and family members.

This points to a potential need for development groups to intervene to help connect respected sources—in this case, medical professionals—with those who want and need good health information.


               

Chart 2


Expanding the analysis to encompass the full range of information sources—both media and non-media—shows radio and TV ranking highest when respondents said where they have received messages about health (Charts 2 and 3).

Chart 3


Newer technologies—SMS and the internet—were mentioned by no more than 1 percent of respondents on any of the key health topics. Radio also came out on top in terms of overall trustworthiness (95 percent of respondents said that health information provided by radio was somewhat or very trustworthy). However, medical doctors received a much higher proportion of the top “very trustworthy” rating than radio (the health information provided by doctors was called very trustworthy by more than three quarters of all respondents, compared to two-thirds of respondents for radio).

The fact that doctors are not the most widely used source of information about health may well be because they are not available to, or affordable for the average Ghanaian. That said, 84 percent of respondents said they generally have access to a doctor or other health care worker when they are sick or injured, implying that it is more difficult to discuss health topics in general with medical professionals than it is to get spot treatment for a particular ailment.

Respondents did not seem unhappy with the health information they are receiving (Chart 4); over 80 percent of all respondents said that they were somewhat or very satisfied with the information currently available to them about the key public health topics. A majority even said they were very satisfied with the information available to them about HIV/AIDS, malaria, and polio.

Chart 4


Rural residents expressed somewhat lower satisfaction rates than urbanites with information they are getting on all of the topics except diarrhea, which may reflect the fact that less health information is available to rural residents. As evidence of this, rural respondents were less likely than those in urban areas to say they had gotten information about malaria, family planning, maternal/infant health, polio, HIV/AIDS, and TB in the last month. Similarly, those with no formal education were less likely than those with education to say they got information about family planning, maternal/infant health, HIV/AIDS, or TB in the last month.

This points to a risk of giving undue weight to satisfaction levels, which were generally high, at the expense of availability of information, which varied by population segment. Clearly, some groups are not receiving as much information as others about important public health issues. Rural communities or uneducated groups (in either rural or urban areas) are, logically, natural areas of focus for development organizations seeking to fill health information gaps.

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