“Mass campaign to individual action”- An effective IEC model for healthier future

Background: School health programs can play an important role in promoting healthy behaviors; particularly when health education is not priority in curriculum. While students lack essential healthcare information, onetime awareness intervention is not sufficient in behavior modification. Therefore a participatory approach will ensure students’ more engagement, will enable to think deeply and better health education.  

Objective: To develop an effective IEC model where students can participate as health advocate to promote health,ensuring the sustainability of a school health campaign.

Study Design: Implantation of school health program as mass campaign in 4 different schools involving 400 students, 20 interested students (10^th Standard) were selected on the basis of their performance. They were participating in a workshop to know necessary health information, for the basic understating of health education and to learn health communication (IEC activities). They were prepared as a health advocate to disseminate knowledge to their schoolmate as individual action during their free time in school hours. 

Result: Selected 20 students interacted 1211 students individually and shared the vital health information within a span of two months. A self-administered questionnaire survey (closed-ended) was also conducted by these students as pre-test. After two months 156 students were randomly selected from 1211 students and a post-test was done on the same questionnaire. The result showed a notable increase of health knowledge (15.52 %) among the students, pre-test score 3.81 Vs post-test score 4.54.  

Conclusion: An effective IEC plan should be incorporated in school health policy for better public health.