Strengthening Health- Applying Research Evidence (SHARE)

Way to disseminate health-related information towards agenda-setting for policy makers, shaping public policies and people’s participation has always been widely discussed issue. Researchers’ often aim at just  publishing research studies in peer-reviewed journals and issues of disseminating research findings to policymakers and stakeholders are left out insignificantly. The gap between the policy makers and research community is still wide. From demand side, citizens’ voice often remains unheard and is rarely taken into account while making and implementing health policies. To address these gaps and incongruity, capacity building initiatives of European Union funded SHARE (Strengthening Health, Applying Research) project of icddr,b is working together with researchers, policy makers and health managers towards evidence-informed health policy making in Bangladesh. Recent experience in organizing policy dialogue, public engagement and capacity building for health managers under this project shows that mass media can be the conduit among researchers, policy makers, health managers and community people.

Undoubtedly, mass media influences individual health behaviors, health care utilization, and health care practices.  This influence can effectively go beyond health communication for awareness building. Mass media puts the information into the policy-making process, and researchers can also use media to promote health system reform on the national agenda. In SHARE project meeting with national health reporters’ forum representatives of Bangladesh and several consultation meeting with partners, multiple impacts of media was discussed and ameliorating role of media in evidence-informed policymaking was emphasized. Eventually, it paves the way for stepping in mass media by SHARE Project.

Accountable and responsive health administration is a crying need in developing countries like Bangladesh where mass media can take role. Keeping it in consideration, SHARE project of icddr,b hosted a public health conversation, titled ‘Health Dialogue for the People’ in October 2016 in Monpura- one of the remotest island of southern Bangladesh. The event provided an improved understanding of the current health service situation in hard-to-reach areas of Bangladesh, and initiated the difficult process of engaging wide range local and national stakeholders to collaborate towards developing better health service delivery in these areas. Along with health managers, researchers, local leaders, policy makers and common people, media representatives attended the event and gave opportunity for extensive media coverage that created attention from stakeholders. SHARE project initiative of organizing two health dialogues proves how prominently media can take role on citizens’ voices and demands that result in improved state responsiveness, transparency and accountability in health sector.  

But reality says- reporting health evidence in mass media is not that much common in Bangladesh.  Factors of time constraints and the difficulty in understanding jargons and complexities of health research issues usually hinder the use of research evidence in health reports. Instead of dwelling on technicalities of health research, journalists have preference for brief summaries of research and take home messages.  Health reporters often find it difficult to verify the credibility of information sources. Besides, many journalists are incapable of conveying research messages accurately to the public and stakeholders. Therefore, researchers also worry about the inaccuracy of their work by the media. Addressing these issues in capacity building initiatives can enhance the role of media in channeling evidence into policies.

In order to provide journalists with an opportunity to hone their skills on mainstreaming evidence-informed health reporting, icddr,b’s European Union funded SHARE project in collaboration with the Press Institute of Bangladesh organized an orientation programme for 25 national reporters from print, electronic and online media in  December 2016. The orientation training started with the session on ‘Evidence Based Health Policy Making’ facilitated by Dr Iqbal Anwar, scientist and SHARE Project Director at icddr,b. He pointed out the existing gap between field level health programmes and centralized health policymaking. He explained why research findings should be easily accessible and highlighted why best practices deserve wide dissemination where mass media can play an influential role. Citing published health reports, professional trainers gave the journalists a number of story ideas worth pitching, ranging from universal health coverage to community engagement in the health sector.  This orientation helped the participants learn how good reporting is possible from the ever-increasing stream of health information. Journalists often struggle for effective search strategies to identify and access relevant knowledge resources on public health. So, this orientation also demonstrated how to find scientific literature from PubMed, which comprises more than 26 million citations for biomedical literature from life science journals, public health journals and online books. In a feedback session the participant journalists expressed a desire for this orientation and knowledge to continue. Pressure and awareness created by journalists and the joint initiatives of health research organizations and media agencies can effectively push health issues to the forefront of public awareness, strengthening advocacy and policymaking.

 This was an important step of mass media engagement in SHARE project activity. Encouraging trend shows that electronic media in Bangladesh started taking its role in health sector, though most of the electronic media platforms don’t have that much reporters dedicated to health bit only. It is not easy to deal with complex issues regarding evidence-informed health policy on entertainment media like television. There is still long way to go for shifting media focus on disease-centric or clinical programmes to critical health policy programmes. If the media programmes on health policy issues are reliable, informative and objective, target audiences will choose to watch it. Health reporters just need to learn the timeliness and newsworthiness of health policy issues, and here lies the importance of working together in collaboration with researchers, policy maker and relevant stakeholders. For facilitating such productive engagement of researchers and policymakers with the mass media, SHARE Project has taken initiative to organize health talk shows on electronic media and continue journalists’ orientation in 2017. This can contribute in fruitful engagement with researchers, policy makers and health programme managers which can help mass media to derive information for promoting evidence-informed policymaking and bridging the existing “know-do” gap. At the same time, this togetherness can help researchers to contextualize their research findings and also sensitize mass media to come forward for promoting the development of local health systems, highlighting expectations from underserved people quality health care, and strengthening management capacity of public health programmes that shape people’s lives.