Effective Health Communication Strategies in India: An Empirical Study With Special Reference to Women Malnutrition

The research paper is an attempt to identify and delineate the role of health communication in mainstreaming the malnutrition issues affiliating the women segment of the society. Communication has become one of the pivotal parts of human life. It plays a significant role in our daily life processes. Today directly or indirectly, media play the most important role in communicating information around the world. Media covers a wide dimension of our society in which health is an important aspect to look upon. Media concedes various developments in the health sector. Media helps to inform, encourage, motivate and promote people about the information related to health issues. The steps taken to make people aware of the health-related issues is known as health communication. The researchers focused on the knowledge, behavior, and attitude of the rural women towards several health issues. The main objectives of the research work are to determine the knowledge of health-related issues among the rural women of Lucknow district, to understand the importance of health communication in rural areas and to examine the reach and access of communication in the rural areas. A survey of 200 rural women collected from the village areas of Lucknow district. The sampling area selected by the researcher was Kalli Pashchim and Birura villages of Lucknow. The sampling technique used in the research study is judgment sampling. The interview schedule was prepared to keep the nutritional status of the rural women and communication reach on the subject of health issue in mind like malnutrition. The findings indicate that the majority of the respondents are not aware of the concept of 'Health Communication'. This shows that the term 'Health Communication' is not known by more than half of the rural women respondents. The researchers found that only 14% of the respondents take an interest in health-related programs and they watch and hear the programs. While maximum female respondents said that they love watching daily soaps and rarely watch any program related to health. The researcher found that 60.50% feel that the media is playing a crucial role in communicating information related to health related issues. This shows that the women in rural areas understand the importance of media in the field of health.