A Whole-of-Society (WoS) Approach to Health Crisis Communication in Ethiopia Intersecting Indigenous, Traditional, Social and Interpersonal Media

Health communication is crucial to raising public consciousness about general and specific health problems and to making members of the public responsible for their own health and safety. Preventing health problems is an easy and effective way to keep the public healthy, and in this regard designing context-specific health communication strategies is vital.

Health communication is crucial to raising public consciousness about general and specific health problems and to making members of the public responsible for their own health and safety. Preventing health problems is an easy and effective way to keep the public healthy, and in this regard designing context-specific health communication strategies is vital. The disruption caused by the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak demanded pertinent health communication to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This disrupted situation suits the Diffusion of Innovations Theory. Data collected using in-depth interview and qualitative content analysis for this study reveals that Ethiopia uses a ”whole-of-society” (WoS) approach in health communication, which incorporates multiple and integrated communication channels, opinion leaders and change agents. Both general and specific health crises, for example the outbreak of COVID-19, make it imperative to provide the public with the necessary health information to change their behaviour, which is not easy. Logistical problems and the paucity of communication materials as well as lack of expertise and negligence are challenges for health communication. Generally, health communication has been effective in raising the public’s consciousness about health issues and has contributed significantly to universal health coverage. However, COVID-19 forced health communication to extend beyond awareness-raising and persuasion of people to changing their behaviour in Ethiopia.