The Ghana Health Service (GHS), through its Accelerating Social and Behavior Change Project (ASBC), organized a training session for members of the Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) subcommittee in Damongo, located in the Savannah Region. The training, supported by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), aimed to enhance the participants’ capacity to perform more effectively and efficiently, ultimately improving health promotion activities in the region.
Dr. Joseph Ana-Imwine Nyuzaghl, the Savannah Regional Director of Health, spoke during the training, highlighting that it would strengthen the health system’s preparedness and response to public health emergencies while improving overall health promotion activities in the region.
RCCE has been recognized as a crucial strategy for ensuring an effective response to public health emergencies, leading to the establishment of RCCE subcommittees. These subcommittees are multidisciplinary teams tasked with providing technical support for the planning and execution of Risk Communication and Community Engagement activities before, during, and after public health emergencies.
Dr. Nyuzaghl emphasized the importance of effective risk communication as a key pillar in any public health response to emergencies. He noted that providing communities with accurate, reliable, trusted, and timely information is essential. “When individuals and communities have access to this information, they are more likely to adopt appropriate behaviors and embrace public health interventions, which helps reduce disease burden and ultimately leads to the health outcomes we all desire,” he stated.
He also mentioned that the RCCE subcommittee would enhance social mobilization efforts and effectively address and counter 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 is composed of co-opted members from the RCCE subcommittee, with the primary objective of coordinating and mobilizing resources for sustained health promotion interventions that enhance the health and well-being of the population.
Dr. Nyuzaghl expressed confidence that both committees would function more efficiently after the training, leading to robust and resilient risk communication and community engagement in the region.
