By Regina Atule
Damongo, May 09, GNA – The Ghana Health Service (GHS), under its Accelerating Social and Behaviour Change Project (ASBC) Activity, has organised a training for Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) Sub-committee members in Damongo in the Savannah Region.
The training, with support from World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) sought to build the capacity of participants to enhance their ability to perform more effectively and efficiently to improve health promotion activities in the region.
Dr Joseph Ana-Imwine Nyuzaghl, Savannah Regional Director of Health, speaking during the training, said it would strengthen the health system to prepare and adequately respond to public health emergencies and improve general health promotion activities in the region.
RCCE has been identified as a key strategy to ensuring effective response to public health emergencies, hence the establishment of the RCCE Sub-committees.
It is a multi-disciplinary team mandated to provide technical support for effective planning and execution of RCCE activities before, during and after public health emergencies.
Dr Nyuzaghl said one of the key pillars of any public health response to emergencies was the need for effective risk communication, which was crucial in ensuring that communities had access to accurate, reliable, trusted, and timely information.
He emphasised that “When individuals and communities have access to the right information, they are more likely to adopt the appropriate behaviours and also take up public health interventions that will help reduce disease burden and ultimately translate into the kind of health outcomes that we all desire.”
He said the RCCE Sub-committee would enhance social mobilisation activities and also address and respond to myths, misinformation, disinformation, and misconceptions at the community level.
As part of the training, the Inter-agency Coordination Committee for Health Promotion (ICC-HP) was inaugurated.
The ICC-HP) comprised co-opted members from the RCCE Sub-committee, whose core objective was to coordinate and mobilise resources for the provision of sustained health promotion interventions that enhanced health and wellbeing for the population.
Dr Nyuzaghl was confident that the two committees would work more efficiently after the training and lead to a robust and resilient RCCE in the region.
GNA