IMPROVING VACCINATION COVERAGE IN URBAN AREAS THROUGH A HEALTH COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN - THE 1990 PHILIPPINE EXPERIENCE

Citation
S. Zimicki et al., IMPROVING VACCINATION COVERAGE IN URBAN AREAS THROUGH A HEALTH COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN - THE 1990 PHILIPPINE EXPERIENCE, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 72(3), 1994, pp. 409-422
Citations number
22
Categorie Soggetti
Public, Environmental & Occupation Heath
ISSN journal
00429686
Volume
72
Issue
3
Year of publication
1994
Pages
409 - 422
Database
ISI
SICI code
0042-9686(1994)72:3<409:IVCIUA>2.0.ZU;2-0
Abstract
From March to September 1990 the Philippine Department of Health, with the assistance of the HEALTHCOM Project, carried out a national mass- media communication campaign to support routine vaccination services. The essential elements of the campaign strategy were as follows: focus ing on measles as a way to get mothers to bring their children to the health centre; emphasizing logistic knowledge in the mass-media messag es, in particular popularizing a single day of the week as ''vaccinati on day'' and giving clear information about the age for measles vaccin ation; and focusing on urban areas, which had lower vaccination rates than rural areas. Evaluation of the effects of the campaign indicates an increase in vaccination coverage and a substantial increase in the timeliness of vaccination that can be attributed to improvement in car ers' knowledge about vaccination. Furthermore, most of the observed in crease in knowledge was related to exposure to the mass-media campaign . There was no evidence of any programmatic change that could account for the increase in vaccination or evidence that increased health educ ation efforts at health centres could account for the change in knowle dge.These results indicate that when countries meet certain conditions - a high level of access to the media, sufficient expertise and funds available to develop and produce high-quality radio and television ad vertisements, and a routine system that is able to serve the increased demand - a mass communication campaign can significantly improve vacc ination coverage.