The Nature of Community Participation in Design and Implementation of Health Communication Campaigns in Nyando Sub Country

Media publicize health information through health campaigns. Media campaigns are central to peoples 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 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; has not mostly been 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 the nature of community participation in health campaigns design and implementation of appropriate media. It is on this ground that this study purposed to establish the nature of community participation in design and implementation of health communication campaigns 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 household heads. A random walk technique was then used to get the 379 household heads to fill questionnaires. For NGO heads, chiefs and assistant chiefs, purposive sampling was applied hence sample sizes of 11, 4, and 6 respectively for interviews. 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 less participation in decision making, problem identification, community mapping, media programmes and budgeting aspects of the campaign. Participation is challenged by nonparticipation culture, financial constraints, self appointed leaders and accountability issues. Areas of participation in health campaigns included crafting of campaign messages, mounting of posters, acting in drama, theatre and other thematic plays. It was also noted that NGOs in Nyando go through the following design and implementation processes starting with: (1) situation analysis, (2) objectives, (3) tar- get audience, (4) strategy, (5) tactics, (6) media of choice, (7) calendar/timeline, (8) budget, and (9) evaluation. Lastly it was noted that NGOs use a variety of communication tactics among them Web sites, Web casts, blogs, YouTube, Flickr, Texting, Twitter, Wikis, Podcasts, news releases, media kits, e-kits, mat releases, media alerts and fact sheets, electronic news releases, online newsrooms, news conferences, media tours and press parties, public service announcements, video news releases, talk shows, magazine shows, product placements, issue placements, open houses, conventions, promotional events to reach their target communities. 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.