Indigenous Language Media and Communication for Health Purposes in the Digital Age

Abstract

All over the world, the issues of health and ill health have generated heightened attention among health professionals and communication experts. This is expected in view of the prevalence of increasingly life-threatening ailments. It is therefore not surprising that matters bordering on health have been elevated to the front burner of policy and decision making both at the national and multinational levels. This chapter, therefore, observes that the reason most health information doesn't get to the intended audiences and produce the desired effect is because they are not communicated in the most intelligible language to the people. Indigenous language media are potential channels through which health information could reach the grassroots where more than 70 percent of the nation's populations are resident. It also perceived that health communication could be made to produce more effect in this digital era as more citizen journalists could be raised to communicate in the indigenous language.