Since 1964, every November 12, Indonesians commemorate the National Health Day. This commemoration was made because of the malaria epidemic in the 50s. This forced the government to create a malaria eradication program, namely, the Malaria Eradication Command in 1959. The program succeeded in protecting at least 63 million Indonesians from malaria in 1964. Therefore, this commemoration aims to increase Indonesians’ awareness on the importance of health. The 2024 National Health Day is the 60th commemoration with the theme of “Move Together, Healthy Together.”
Dr. Jenny Ratna Suminar, M.Si., a Communication Science Study Programme lecturer, revealed that health is a nation’s pillar of life and is one of the criteria in the Human Index Development, which is why awareness about health is an absolute. But, health phenomenons like hoaxes or unhealthy lifestyles, have become a common occurrence in our daily lives. This is where communication can step in as a tool to convey the importance of health in a sustainable human life.
Much like this year’s theme, as Communication Science students, we can contribute by using our communication skills to affect people’s behaviors. Jenny said that health communication is a systematic effort to influence the health behavior of an individual or society positively through communication principles and methods in various media.
In Communication Science, there exists an audience analysis strategy that’s used to convey information. Before delivering a message, we have to apply this strategy to build a much more effective communication. Jenny explained that the first thing we can do is to understand “who’s our audience?” either with demographic or psychographic metrics because every individual has a different background. The next step is to evoke interest in the audience about the importance of health and their health needs. This strategy can help us in determining the right way of communicating and acting to increase people’s awareness, so that the information that we convey can be more relevant and affect the audience.
On this National Health Day, she hopes that health will be a priority in our daily lives. She said, “Whatever that we have in this world will go to waste if we ignore our health and in turn, letting health related issues stop us from enjoying life.” Health is not just about how to treat a disease, but it’s also about how to maintain and increase the quality of life as a whole. So together let’s move towards a healthier Indonesia in the future. Happy National Health Day! (Ed)