Glimpses on Health Communication

John f Kennedy^*
*Correspondence: John f Kennedy, Department of Journalism, University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom, Email:

Perspective

The concept of communication is now largely recognized to be fundamental to effective healthcare. Poor communication has an adverse effect on both infectious and noninfectious diseases. Communication is, therefore, not seen as an add-on; on the contrary, it's recognized as being at the guts of patient care. As Kreps noted, communication is prime in generating, collecting, and sharing health facts. It's an underlying process that permits individual and collective adaptation to health risks at many various levels. Central to the challenge and therefore the task of ending hepatitis, therefore, is health communication, which is that the theme of this study. Health communication attempts to chop down and eliminate the danger factors of lifestyle health behavior. It's important to notice that the necessity to know health information behavior is increasingly gaining the interest of communication discipline researchers. The National Cancer Institute (1989), Duffy and Jackson, and Bath have all established the role of communication altogether aspects of the health of humanity, especially because it relates to improving personal and public health. This is often premised on the assumption that communication, when applied effectively, can create awareness and engender relevant behavioral changes. An integral function of health communication is that the influence of people and communities, for improved wellbeing. The Centre for Disease Control (CDC) describes health communication because the utilization of communication approaches to enlighten and influence individual and community decisions for positive lifestyle-related health behavior. Health communication, therefore, aims at reducing and eliminating the danger factors of lifestyle-related health behavior. Achieving this health behavioral change, however, requires access to adequate health information. Communication of important messages to varied and specific audiences has proven to effectively influence the knowledge, attitude, and belief of individuals towards healthy behavioral choices. Such successes are evident in endemic diseases like HIV/AIDS, malaria, and polio. Since health communication revolves round the development of the proper strategies, understanding health-related issues, and increased knowledge, its adoption within the elimination of hepatitis B virus (HBV) is important. HBV infection has been recognized as a communicable disease of worldwide health importance. Hepatitis B virus is widely referenced to as a silent killer consequent upon the no awareness of carriers. Studies have also shown that persons might be infected up to 10 years without knowing. Within the submission of HBV records a high death rate, both from acute infection and chronic disease conditions, and is positioned among the highest ten killer diseases globally. The planet Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that over 325 million people were living with HBV globally, with this accounting for 1.34 million yearly mortality rates from acute infection and hepatitis-related cancer of the liver and cirrhosis. These estimates were almost like that of HIV and tuberculosis, estimated at 1.1 million deaths and 1.4 million deaths in 2016, respectively. They have further revealed that 4.5 million premature deaths might be avoided in lowand middle-income countries by 2030. The govt of Nigeria has turned towards addressing the burden of hepatitis B virus within the country more keenly. Hence, for the primary time, on the 30th of July 2015, Nigeria joined the remainder of the planet in commemorating the planet Hepatitis Day, four years after the official declaration by the United Nations General Assembly. The Federal Ministry of Health in Nigeria has noted that quite 22.6 million Nigerians are infected with hepatitis B viruses, with many being healthy carriers of this, about 19 million and over 3.6 million Nigerians are estimated to be infected with HBV and HCV. The necessity to look at the influence of health communication for hepatitis B virus management in Nigeria is significant at now when the topic has taken the center stage and has assumed an optimum position within the policies of international agencies and various developed and developing nations. Within the assertion of Nut beam, health communication is, therefore, an important approach to managing public health issues. Increasing health literacy levels among the population to know and apply information concerning health issues and achieving a considerable impact on health behaviors are critical functions of health communication. While several studies are done to look at the knowledge, attitude, and practice of individuals towards hepatitis, there's paucity of knowledge on the extent to which health communication influences knowledge, attitude, and practice primarily in semi urban and concrete population. This study, therefore, investigates health communication channels as predictors of data, attitude, and behavioral practices with a stress on three Southwest states in Nigeria that have the foremost prevalence rate of hepatitis B virus.