HEALTH COMMUNICATIONS · A BEDIX FEATURE
Giving Public Health a Voice
Why
the stories we tell or fail to tell are a matter of life and death.
By Ima Dem
Award-winning
Journalist · Public Health Communications Specialist
Published on bedix.ng · September 2026
I remember
how a compelling story of a tuberculosis survivor saved a life, reinforcing the power of communication in
public health.
It was in
2022, when a clergyman in the southern state of Akwa Ibom shared his
tuberculosis story and the journey to recovery on live radio. He had spent
months in denial, getting so sick that he was coughing up blood, before he
finally sought help.
Hearing
him share his story about his six-month recovery didn't just make for
good-radio, it gave a listener in another community the courage to get tested
and save their own life. That single broadcast drove months long surge in local
TB diagnoses.
The impact
of that life-changing narrative and many other similar moments, where real
stories were shared by survivors, triggering behaviorial change, influenced the
way I understand my work.
It is the
lens through which I have written, broadcast, and advocated public health
policies that have led to collective action. It also says more about how good
public health communication goes beyond just sharing information to driving
social change
"Stories
are more likely to change behaviour than data alone. The science is unambiguous
on this." — University of Michigan School of Public Health, 2025
THE DANGER IN WHAT WE DON'T SAY
Public
health, which is dominantly seen from a scientific lens, considers
communication as an afterthought. Resources are poured into the scientific
solutions while starving the messenger. What then happens to the public health
communication?
Accurate,
timely, trusted information remains one of the most under-resourced elements of
public health infrastructure.
For
instance, a 2024 national workforce survey in the United States revealed that
while nearly half of public health workers spent time in communications roles,
only a fraction identified it as their primary function.
The
communications workforce, the study concluded, was vital but under-resourced.
That finding resonates far beyond American borders. From experience, I have
found here in Nigeria and other countries across the African continent, that
public health communicators operate on fragile budgets, with little or no training.
The ripple
effects of these are immediate and severe. During Nigeria's 2024 cholera
outbreak, a systematic analysis of 352 news articles found that media coverage
followed a reactive, crisis-driven pattern, surging more than 400 per cent in
June to match peak case numbers, then retreating.
Structural
and preventive themes, water, sanitation, hygiene education received less than
a quarter of coverage. The outbreak was covered as an event, not as a story.
And when the event was no longer on the headlines, the conversation dipped, as
preventable deaths followed in silence.
"Media
reporting on the 2024 cholera outbreak in Nigeria was reactive and focused
disproportionately on threat rather than solutions." — Published research,
2026
THE INFODEMIC REALITY
In my years of covering public health, I have
learnt that staying silent is not safety. People love to say “What you don't
know cannot kill you”, but that is a deadly myth. In Public Health, what you
don't know is usually the exact thing that puts you in danger.
We saw
this play out during COVID-19. Nigeria
didnt just fight a virus. We fought an epidemic of lies. Rumours about miracle
cures moved faster than testing kits, creating a second crisis, before the
first was even contained. Low health literacy and an information vacuum
deepened public mistrust in institutions that were already struggling to earn
it.
This is
not a uniquely Nigerian story. Research published in 2025 on health
misinformation across Sub-Saharan Africa found that social media platforms, particularly
Facebook and Telegram, had become primary vectors for unverified health
content, accelerating vaccine hesitancy, delaying treatment for diseases like
tuberculosis and HIV, and reinforcing stigma.
The study
noted a painful irony which is that the same platforms that could carry
verified, life-saving health information were being used more effectively by
those spreading misinformation than by those fighting it.
The gap is
not one of truth versus falsehood. It is one of story versus silence.
Misinformation moves because someone chose to tell it, shaped it, made it
emotionally resonant, and pushed it into the world. Meanwhile, life saving
medical truths remain trapped in unread technical bulletins and bland press
releases.
HEALTH COMMUNICATION: MOVING PEOPLE BEYOND THE DATA.
Most times conversations on good health
communication take centre stage, the focus is on better messaging. It is
pertinent to understand that it is more than this. Good health communication is
not about making things simpler. It is about making things human.
The World
Health Organisation's Communication for Health approach, adopted formally by
its Western Pacific Region, is built on a principle drawn from neuroscience,
psychology, and behavioural science.
The focus
is on how stories change how people think and act. Stories provide meaning. And
people do not make decisions on information alone, they make them have meaning.
"Facts
alone may not be enough to engage and convince people. That is where the power
of storytelling comes in." — World Health Organisation, 2024
This
reflects what effective health communication looks like at its best: it meets
people where they are, speaks in a language they trust, uses messengers they
believe, and connects health information to the lived realities of their lives.
A 2024
study on public health trust noted that while trust in public national and
global agencies might have dropped, relliance on local health workers and
community leaders has grown.
The lesson
is significant: proximity matters. Trusted voices matter. Stories told by
people who share your experience matter more than statistics issued by
institutions far away.
The
question is whether public health systems, media organisations, and
communications professionals are prepared to harness these strengths
strategically, rather than defaulting to the models inherited from different
contexts and different audiences.
WHY HEALTH
COMMUNCATORS MATTER.
I have
spent a decade and half sitting at the intersection of journalism and public
health, and I am convinced of one thing: the communications professional is not
a support function. They are a frontline worker.
During
COVID-19, I remember entering hospitals where suspected covid cases were
assessed, and subsequently interviewed survivors who had gone through the
quarantine period and weeks of treatment.
When a
disease outbreak begins, the first question communities ask is not what is the
case fatality rate? It is, should I be afraid? And then: “can I trust what I am
being told”? followed by “What should I do”?
Those
questions are not scientific. They are communicative. They require answers
shaped by clarity, empathy, cultural intelligence, and trust, not data dumps
and technical briefings.
Behavioural
interventions that use trusted messengers to communicate with less confident
communities may play the key role in
re-establishing trust in public health institutions.
This is
critical. It is not in the distribution of information or broadcasting of facts
and the cultivation of trust, through story, through relationship, through
consistent and honest communication over time.
This is
the work I believe in. This is the work Bedix Communications was built around. Shaping
narratives. Moving people. Not merely a slogan, but as a discipline, a
rigorous, strategic, human-centred practice of giving public health the voice
it has always deserved, but too rarely evident.
"Public
health is a field of stories. So we, as public health professionals, have a
responsibility to be good storytellers." — University of Michigan School
of Public Health
BUILDING A BETTER PATH
Now, I
choose to go back to where I started; a story.
The
clergyman whose powerful story resonated, not only as a TB survivor who chose
to speak about his survivorship on radio, but as a religious leader with an
influential voice of reasoning. He gave public health a voice. His story was
the human face public health communication needed to achieve the desired
results.
As
storytellers and health advocates, we can't leave powerful communication to
chance. We need to train people, build real infrastructure and treat impact
driven messaging as a priority. Public health is complex, and that is the exact
reason our stories need to be simple, delibrate, clear and relatable.
People are
not statistics waiting to be counted. They are human beings waiting to be
spoken to, honestly, clearly, and with respect for their intelligence and their
experience.
When we do
that well, behaviour changes, communities mobilise, outbreaks are contained,
and vaccines are taken. More positive outcomes are recorded and more
significantly, people live!
That is
what health communication, done with integrity and craft, is capable of. That
is what it must become, not just a footnote to public health, but its voice.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ima
Dem is a public health communications specialist and an award winning journlist
with over a decade of field experience across West Africa. She writes on health
systems, narratives of care, and the politics of public information. She is a
co-founder and contributing voice at Bedix Communications, where she supports
strategic health messaging and editorial direction.
Published
by Bedix Communications · bedix.ng · Shaping Narratives. Moving People.
