THE ROLE OF CIVIL SOCIETY IN HEALTH COMMUNICATION

Abstract

Health Communication is an emerging field, it involves the examination of various communication models and techniques used by healthcare professionals and policymakers to communicate health and influence the health-related behavior of the public. It is an interdisciplinary niche where social sciences, psychology, life sciences, and communication studies work in close association. It is also important to understand different theories of mass communication while working out a suitable health communication strategy. Various professionals and organizations are involved in the process of communicating health to society, civil society is the prime stakeholder in this process. It is clear from the analysis of historical and contemporary data that civil society has contributed greatly over a period of time in communicating health to the people. Civil society also had contributed in mobilizing, rights advocacy, and community monitoring of health centers and schemes. We studied the content of various civil society organizations having a rural footprint to ascertain their impact on health communication. The healthcare ecosystem in India is rapidly changing, in the view of continuous decrease in state spending over the healthcare role of civil society became increasingly crucial, so it is very important to ensure their greater participation at all levels of policy making and in implementation as well.