Abstract
The study has three objectives: 1) to study the information needed for health promotion and disease prevention, 2) to study the channel to access information on health care and disease prevention, and 3) to study the factors influencing the needs of information to promote health and disease prevention. The study is under the “Universal Health Coverage Program. The technique for data and information collection include observations, interviews and focus group discussions. The four selected research sites are; Nong-Hoi and Sri Lanna Community in Chiangmai Municipality, Wat Choeng-Ta at Lopburi Municipality, Bang-Wang in Buriram and Sa-Plee in Chumpon.The study found that the sample groups from all study sites needed the information as followings: 1) the information concerning their immediate health problems, 2) the information caused by external motivation either from government or private sectors, and 3) the needs for “repetition” of the information according their daily needs. The study also found that, the information should be user friendly and easily accessible, combining of informative data and entertainment that related to their lifestyle and daily activities, that is interesting and interactive (two-way communicated).For the channel of information accessibility; all groups could access the information through to the television the most but at different time of the day according to age group and occupation group. For the children group, they could access the information through television and books in the school library and through their parents, neighbors and the elderly. For the labor group, which can be categorized into three sub-groups; 1) the labor under the 30 Baht coverage program (informal sector labor), the labor under the social security fund (formal sector labor) and the labor under governmental health welfare (government employees). Each group has different potential to access the information on health.The study found that there are three factors associate with health information needs; firstly, personal factors which are sex, age, education, occupation, health condition and lifestyle; secondly, environmental factor which are health threat conditions in the community, the difficulty to understand the information, the ability to access the health care unit, health problems of family members, the daily problem especially the external stimulations; and finally, health care attitudes and values of individuals on health care, the insecurity on their health condition and self-confidence on their health care.The study finding lead to the following policy recommendation: came on suggestions as followings; 1) Decentralize the production of the information under U.C. program in two levels which are at both national and provincial levels; 2) Revise the information strategies to suit the need of the community members such as: ease of use; combination of entertainment and informative data; use two-way communication by linking community members need with doctors or specialists, develop and strengthen the use of health-volunteers; and establish of a committee to be responsible for managing health promotion and disease prevention information; and 3) Use health promotion campaign to promote the need on health information by utilizing “social trend” and create health information programs that are “proactive.”
