Training a new generation of African health journalists and communicators

 

Thursday 3rd April 2025 saw the start of an exciting new chapter in training Africa’s health communicators to take up the challenge of addressing sub-Saharan Africa’s health priorities. On that day, fourteen talented young professionals graduated from a newly launched training course in Health Journalism and Public Health Communication.

Hosted by the Kenya Medical Research Institute’s (KEMRI) Graduate School, and co-funded by the UK-based CLEAN-Air (Africa) research programme, this 8-week ‘hybrid’ course welcomes students from across the region by offering on-line as well as physical attendance.

With a balanced mix of taught sessions and practical fieldwork, the course has been designed to equip creative communicators with the knowledge, skills and support to deliver compelling stories about the continent’s most pressing health problems, and the solutions that can help tackle these priorities. 

 

Why this training, and why now?

We are increasingly living in a world dominated by the internet and social media with lightning fast communication, much of which is shot through with misinformation and ‘fake news’ (AKA lies).

It’s also a world in which sensationalism and celebrity antics gain the attention ahead of more sober, complex information and news. That’s sadly the case, even if the latter have far more of value to say about the health and wellbeing of millions of people. And this is as true of sub-Saharan Africa as anywhere else in the world. Indeed, the well-worn maxim of journalism, ‘If it bleeds, it leads’ is still, unfortunately, to the fore.

But it is also an approach that this course is seeking to challenge. Its doing so by giving participants the knowledge and skills to deliver stories that are not only accurate and balanced, but also incorporate the human interest that can gain the attention of the public, policy makers, and key stakeholders.

 

Challenges encountered in health communication 

The determinants of both individual and population health are complex, often exerting their effects in subtle ways that can be difficult to convey with simple messages. Research in the fields of public health, medical care, and health systems is also characterised by technical terms (‘jargon’) that make clear communication challenging, especially for the public. This can also present a barrier for policy makers and those professional groups and business interests that, although not within the health sector itself, nevertheless control many of the conditions, services, and products that have a major impact on public health.

While the course has been designed to enhance communication around all of Africa’s health priorities, these challenges are  especially relevant when it comes to the effects of the environment on health.  Although often not seen as a reporting priority, air and water quality, waste management, and the climate, are together responsible for a very substantial proportion of the global disease burden.

The World Health Organisation estimates that 24% of all global deaths, some 13.7 million annually, are linked to environmental factors. And that means even larger numbers of people are living will the ill-effects in their everyday lives. And most, if not all of this health burden, is preventable.

Amongst the many environmental threats to health in the world’s poorest countries is the continuing use of inefficient, polluting and unsafe energy in the home, particularly for cooking.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, more than 80% of the population relies on wood, charcoal, other solid biomass, and kerosene for their everyday cooking needs, leading to an estimated 700,000 premature deaths from household air pollution in the region.

Our UK NIHR-funded programme, CLEAN-Air (Africa), is conducting research and capacity building in five sub-Saharan African countries – Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Cameroon – to help accelerate the transition to clean household energy. The urgency of this work is now gaining more recognition, as highlighted by the Summit on Clean Cooking for Africa convened in May 2024 by the International Energy Agency in Paris.

The development and part-funding of this course by CLEAN-Air (Africa) has permitted the inclusion of a component on household energy, air pollution, health, gender, and climate. Our goal is that this will lead to more effective communication about the urgency of this threat to the region’s health, development, and environment, along with evidence on the most effective and efficient solutions.

 

Training that KEMRI is well-placed to deliver

 

The Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) is a State Corporation that was established in Kenya in 1979 with a mission to ‘improve human health and quality of life through research, capacity building, innovation, and service delivery’.

The Institute’s Graduate School delivers a wide range of Masters and PhD programmes, as well as short courses.

This new ‘Health Journalism and Public Health Communication’ short course fits well into KEMRI’s training portfolio – as explained by Dr Martin Bundi, Acting Director of Research Capacity Building.

“Effective communication is key to improving public health outcomes, and as such, the KEMRI Graduate School holds it important to build the capacity of journalists and  public health professionals in public health communication and health journalism.”

“We are also aware of the need to translate complex science outputs that we have into balanced and accurate information that can be easily understood by the public. Hence, this course aligns very well with the mandate of the Institute, and of the Graduate School.”

“Our goal with this course is to have a pool of well-informed, health communicators able to translate this scientific information into meaningful outputs for the public, hence achieving the broader goal of a healthier society.”

 

A comprehensive curriculum – delivered flexibly

The course curriculum was developed jointly between the Kenyan CLEAN-Air (Africa) hub at KEMRI (the ‘Centre of Excellence’), the KEMRI Graduate School, and the University of Liverpool in the UK. It was designed to appeal to those best placed to communicate about Africa’s health priorities, namely journalists, health communication officers, and the scientists who actually generate – and need to explain – their research findings.

Dr James Mwitari, who is co-Director of CLEAN-Air (Africa) and heads the Centre of Excellence in Nairobi, explains more about how the course is structured and delivered:

“This eight-week hybrid course – that is, one that is delivered physically and on-line – is structured into two parts. Part one is made up of four modules, the first three being generic: Introduction to health communication, Health journalism, and Public health communication. The fourth module reflects the aims of CLEAN-Air (Africa) and the pressing need to raise the profile of this topic, and therefore focusses on energy, air pollution, climate change, gender, and health.”

“The second part of the course, also running over four weeks, consists of supervised fieldwork, in which the participants develop a story applying what they have learned in the taught component. This work leads to an article, video, report or other communication product which can be published or broadcast through a range of media, including print, TV, YouTube, social media, etc.”

The CLEAN-Air (Africa) Centre of Excellence is well placed to provide the expertise required for the fourth, specialist module on household energy, air pollution, and related impacts.

The ongoing research programme means there are experienced staff able to contribute to teaching and supervision, and easy access to the evidence base for stories about the topic.

The state-of-the-art air quality measurement laboratory located in the Unit, described briefly in this three-minute video, and supporting article, also provides a valuable resource for explaining and demonstrating the methods required for obtaining and analysing high-quality air pollution data in both urban and rural African settings.

 

Participant group and experience 

The first cohort of fourteen participants joined the newly-launched course in February 2025, with four of CLEAN-Air (Africa)’s partner countries represented; Kenya provided seven participants, Uganda two, Tanzania two, and Cameroon three. Rwanda will be represented in the second cohort. A wide range of professions was also represented, including journalists (4), health communications and public relations officers (7), clinicians (1), and research scientists (2).

The settings in which our course participants worked were also varied, covering media houses (4), government facilities (3), educational establishments (4), NGOs (2), a private organisation (1), and a country CLEAN-Air (Africa) research unit.

Evaluation found that participants gained a great deal from the course, and that their expectations were largely met and in some cases exceeded. The hybrid delivery format worked well, despite the inevitable challenges of maintaining fully-functioning and high-quality internet links at all times, across the four countries involved.

The supervision of fieldwork projects was provided mainly by tutors with extensive media experience, and was widely reported to be supportive and constructive.

Course development in response to feedback from evaluation is ongoing, and those interested are welcome to contact the KEMRI Graduate School for further information about this process.

 

Support from a health media house 

A number of participants had the opportunity to benefit from professional advice and input from Willow Health Media, a Nairobi-based non-profit media house. Led by doctor-turned-journalist Dr Mercy Korir, Willow Health Media communicates on a wide range of health and related policy topics.

As stated on their website, Dr Korir and her team are, ‘dedicated to producing and distributing editorially independent health reporting across different platforms including broadcast and social media platforms.’

This link-up between the course and an established media group is a model that the course team plans to develop further. The intention is that all participants should have the opportunity, if they wish, to benefit during their fieldwork project from professional input into planning, researching, writing, video filming and editing, and in facilitating publication opportunities.

 

Fieldwork outputs: articles, videos, and more to come

On completion of the 4-week fieldwork component of the course, the participants had researched and reported on a wide range of topics, as summarised in the graphic (right). Their work has led to a range of outputs, including feature articles, videos, and reports, some accompanied by social media posts.

The summaries below provide more insight into the fieldwork projects carried out by six of the course participants. These were chosen as their work has already been published, or is close to being ready. Note that these are just a sample from the impressive efforts of all fourteen course participants – their project outputs will be added to updates of this article, as they become available.

Lorraine Opondo (Kenya): Lorraine, who is Director of Corporate Communications at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital (JOOTRH) in Kisumu, was one of several course participants who had an opportunity to work with Willow Health Media – a model that, as noted above, the course team plans to extend to all course participants.

She researched and wrote up an article entitled Kitchen Toto: How Siaya village cooking outshines nutrition clinics. This describes how the Siaya village cooking initiative is successfully tacking child malnutrition in rural Kenya. The key to this is the so-called ‘Positive Deviance Hearth (PD Hearth) approach’, through which parents learn from neighbours who successfully keep their children healthy with limited resources. Lorraine contrasts this with the care of severely malnourished children in the hospital, which is expensive, takes place away from the security of the home, and is not always successful in saving the child’s life. 

Joyce Shebe (Tanzania): Tanzania has committed itself to promote the use of clean cooking energy and has prepared a 10-year national strategy (2024-2034) aimed at ensuring that 80 percent of Tanzanians use clean cooking energy by the year 2034. Youth are seen as an important group in carrying this agenda of using clean cooking energy forward, by using various innovations and technologies.

Joyce, a climate change journalist and chief editor at Clouds Media Group, researched and produced a 5 minute video, ‘Youth and Clean Energy Innovation’. This looks at how young people can contribute more to achieving transition to cleaner energy [English language transcript not yet available].

Susan Maina (Kenya): Also working with Willow Health Media, Susan – who is a Deputy Director Public Health Officer at the Kenyan Ministry of Health – researched and produced a 13 minute video entitled: ‘From Smoke to Sustainability: Kenya’s Clean Cooking Struggle’, an investigation of the challenges and opportunities facing Kenya’s goal of transitioning away from wood and charcoal by 2028.

With material from households, policy makers and implementers, and those whose livelihoods could suffer – for example charcoal sellers – Susan’s film considers what will be needed from Kenyan government and society if the country is to succeed in this ambitious goal by 2028, or at least within the timeframe of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal – 7, which seeks to ‘Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all’, by 2030.

Melissa Kwenkeu (Cameroon): Melissa, who works as a Communications Officer for CLEAN-Air (Africa), investigated perceived barriers to switching from traditional wood and charcoal cooking fuel to LPG. She spoke to homes that still did all or most of their cooking with traditional fuels, and compared their responses to others that had made a complete or at least substantive switch to LPG.

While some households had adapted to, and could afford, cooking with LPG, others were struggling with the costs, perceptions that the food tasted better with the traditional fuels, and using large pots on the available LPG cookers. Melissa places her set of three articles (link to be added) in the context of the Cameroon National Masterplan for LPG scale-up, which has set ambitious goals for reaching almost 60% LPG use by 2035, identifying important challenges that need addressing if this target is to be reached.

Tim Sang (Kenya): Tim, previously a Public Health Officer at Meru Hospital, has been working as a research scientist at KEMRI since early 2024 specialising in maternal and child health, and water and sanitation.

The course stimulated his interest in climate change, so he researched the impacts that this may be having on cholera. This disease, which is spread by poor water quality and inadequate sanitation, has recently seen a resurgence is several areas of Kenya, including a number of fatalities. Tim wanted to find out how aware the public, the media, and others are about the part played in these trends by climate change.

Tim’s work has been reported in KEMRI Bulletin #135, and he is now looking to publish on a platform with a wider audience. 

Marie Kuteesa (Uganda): Marie, a Paediatrician and research fellow at Makerere University Lung Institute, Uganda, explored public awareness in Kampala of the health risks from household air pollution (HAP).

She found that, while the government is pressing ahead with policies to encourage the transition to clean household energy, households are struggling with the costs of clean energy (such as LPG), and while they use some gas for convenience, they still rely mainly on charcoal.

A summary of her project article has been published in the Busoga Health Forum, and promoted through social media. 

 

Looking to the future

What are the future plans and prospects for training Africa’s health communicators and this newly-launched Health Journalism and Public Health Communication course? 

With the success of, and experience gained through, the delivery to the initial cohort of fourteen participants earlier in 2025, plans are underway to welcome two more groups during 2025, and continue improving and building the programme going forward.

The course will maintain the hybrid delivery model and the equal mix of taught modules and practical fieldwork. The team will seek to strengthen links with established media groups to guide the course development and support participants.

Looking ahead, and as Dr Martin Bundi said, the ultimate aim is to develop an ever-growing ‘pool’ of skilful professionals who are able to communicate Africa’s health priorities through powerful stories. It is also our intention, and that of the initial group of participants, that this growing body of communicators will provide mutual support to their colleagues.

Another aim for training Africa’s health communicators over the next two to three years is to extend the reach of this course and its alumni to international media bodies and audiences. In addition to involving more countries across sub-Saharan Africa in terms of participants, news stories, and outlets, we will also work to build collaboration with major international media platforms.

 

Comments and enquiries welcomed

Your comments and questions are welcomed, particularly at this stage as we seek to develop and improve the course.

For direct enquiries about this programme, please contact the KEMRI Graduate School.