Health education and the behaviour of people in selected rural communities of the Central region of Ghana

Abstract

This research was carried out to determine the effect of community health education on the behaviour of people in selected coastal communities in the Central Region of Ghana between 2002 and 2006. A health centre from each of three study districts and then two communities were selected through simple random sampling. Respondents from the study communities categorized into beneficiaries (Breman, Egyankwa and Simbrofo) and non-beneficiaries (Eguafo, Etsibeedu and Mprumem) were interviewed to determine their sources and levels of knowledge on prevention of malaria, HIV/AIDS, childhood killer diseases and their responsiveness to antenatal care. Generally it was found that, there were significant differences in knowledge levels of beneficiary and non beneficiary communities with beneficiary communities having relatively higher percentages. The major source of knowledge was the Ghana Health Service Educational fora, followed by NGO outreach. Contrary to expectations, preventive health behaviour determined by trends in antenatal attendance gap, immunization gap and malaria reported cases were not significant. This means that there was no difference in preventive health behaviour of beneficiary and non beneficiary communities. It is recommended that health education should be holistically addressed. That is, there is a need for both political and educational action to influence health. Since certain policies must be enforced by law so that with little intervention, positive results will be attained.