polio Archives - Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform

Coming of Age: Communication’s Role in Powering Global Health

Communication has been a consistent current running through many major health developments of recent years. And yet, despite the demonstrated promise of communication as a tool for improving public health, not enough has been done to date to capitalise upon its potential, particularly in the poorest parts of the world. Through a careful review of the evidence, this briefing offers a spirited case for why donors, practitioners and developing country governments need to pay more attention to the role of communication in tackling global health.The briefing finds that: Communication has been central to public health developments from Ebola to polio and from HIV to child survival.
While health policy officials recognise the importance of health communication, it often remains poorly funded, under-utilised and badly planned in public health programmes. Even when it does prioritise communication, public health programming often fails to reflect best practice around the role of social and behaviour change communications (SBCC).Progress has been stymied by the complexity of social and behaviour change communication,

Polio Vaccines – Difficult to Swallow The Story of a Controversy in Northern Nigeria

Background Reports

Global health and poverty reduction discourses have recognised immunisation as one of the most affordable and effective means of reducing child mortality and in a broader sense, as an essential contribution to poverty reduction efforts. While immunisation comes with countless benefits, it is potentially a complex and difficult health strategy to enforce. Decisions on broader health as well as immunisation goals are often made at a global level to be incorporated and adapted in to national health plans and budgets. Evidently for immunisation campaigns, the journey from the global to the local is a vulnerable and unpredictable one. Indeed ‘anti-vaccination rumours’ have been defined as a major threat to achieving vaccine coverage goals. This is demonstrated in this paper through a case study of responses to the Global Polio Eradication Campaign (GPEI) in northern Nigeria where Muslim leaders ordered the boycott of the Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV).