In my previous blog, I discussed methodology to evaluate the efficacy of a community health radio program. I discussed the flawed nature of many of the ways that community health radio programs are evaluated. The use of surveys as a stand-alone indicator of a differential knowledge outcome is insufficient to evaluate the efficacy of a radio program. For instance, a program could have sparked a dialogue about HIV/AIDS in a family living, where the sensitive had not been broached before. This would be a success in and of itself; however, it would not be reflected in the results of a survey that evaluated a person’s understanding of how HIV/AIDS is transmitted. However, there are many different social change indicators that can be observed over time in order to ascertain whether a community radio has been successful. These social change indicators are discussed in the Department for International Development’s report on Radio Broadcasting for Health.
In this report, Dr. Andrew Skuse wrote that the example indicators relevant to health broadcasting include: expanded public and private dialogue and debate; increased accuracy of the information that people share in the dialogue and debate; the means available that enable people and communities to feed their voices into debate and dialogue; increased leadership and agenda setting role by disadvantaged people on issues of concern resonates with the major issues of interest to people’s everyday interests; linked people and groups with similar interests who might otherwise not be in contact. All of these indicators are based on dialogue that is stimulated by the health radio broadcasts. If health radio broadcasts successfully create dialogue, by continually reinforcing key points about critical health issues, there will be resulting action. An example of the type of action that could be taken as a result of listening to a radio health broadcast would be an increase in individuals engaging in healthy and health seeking behavior. An example of healthy seeking behavior would occur, if after listening to a series of broadcasts on the importance of HIV/AIDS testing, there was an increase in the number of people visiting a nearby HIV/AIDS testing site. An example of the positive influence of a public health radio station on a community was documented in the 1994 Save the Children United Kingdom study in Mali on HIV/AIDS, where they found that of the 2000 people surveyed 47% of the people had heard about AIDS through the radio.
Researchers should include an evaluation of the social change indicators when evaluating the efficacy of a community health radio intervention. A way to do this is through qualitative interviews and focus groups. Both of these methods of research can utilize protocols, which allow people to describe behavior change that occurred as a result of the introduction of health radio broadcasts. Unlike surveys, which are typically used to evaluate the efficacy of radio health broadcasts, interviews and focus groups go beyond an evaluation of a person’s knowledge about critical health issues.
References
Booth, Isobel. “Radio soap for health education: lessons learnt by Health Unlimited Rwanda 1997-2003.” Health Unlimited (2003): n. pag. Print.
Serlemitsos, E. A., U. Bharath-Kumar, J. A. Nyambe, B. Mukwatu, and R. E. Carty. “Building community mobilisation skills at scale: The synergy of radio distance learning and the roll-out of a national curriculum for health workers in Zambia.” Proc. of International Conference on AIDS, Thailand, Bangkok. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.
Skuse, Andrew. Radio Broadcasting for Health: An Issues Paper. Issue brief. N.p.: Department for International Development, 2004. Print.