The International Conference on Urban Health (ICUH). Managing Urbanisation For Health: A Priority For All Nations

Abstract

Urban media operators and maternal health awareness: An inquiry The advancement of health for urban dwellers would be an uphill task and may end up not becoming a reality without the involvement of media operators situated in urban settings. The role of the media industry in facilitating health and wellbeing as embedded in the Millennium Development Goals as well as the Sustainable Development Goals cannot be underemphasized. This study zeroed in on two Nigerian broadcast media operators - Africa Independent Television and Lagos Television - for the purpose of ascertaining the knowledge of urban media operators on maternal health; identifying the target audience of maternal health messages; knowing the language(s) used in transmitting maternal health messages; finding out the performance rating of urban media operators as regards maternal health dissemination; and discovering strategies adopted by urban media operators to promote maternal health awareness. The qualitative research approach by way of interview was adopted to address the aforementioned study objectives. Amongst several findings of the study, it was deducted that the urban media operators in question were knowledgeable on the subject matter, had more than one type of target audience for their maternal health messages and made use of awareness campaigns. A major recommendation of this study was that urban media operators required a good level of networking with urban health organizations to break through barriers that impede the massive success of propagating maternal health messages that are beneficial to urban dwellers in particular and the entire public in general.