‘Developing Health Media in Jordan’ sessions conclude

AMMAN — The national consultative sessions on “Developing Health Media in Jordan”,  organised by the Royal Health Awareness Society (RHAS) and the Ministry of Government Communication, concluded on Monday. 

The three-day workshop was held with the participation of Jordanian media professionals, academics, researchers and lecturers, as well as civil society and international organisations concerned with health and media. 

Director of Programmes at RHAS Amal Ireifij said that health media plays an integral role in realising RHAS’ vision to create “a safe and healthy Jordanian society”. 

She also noted that media can have a great impact on people’s decisions and behaviours, which was particularly apparent during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time of crises that highlighted the importance of “health media”. The results of the workshop will be used to prepare a policy paper involving a set of actionable recommendations to develop health media in Jordan, according to Ireifij. 

The sessions’ focus areas included health media in times of crises, health media in the digital age, health media and health equity, in addition to health-focused content creation. The last session focused on the priorities of media institutions and media professionals in regard to health media. 

Media professionals worked in groups to discuss available resources and opportunities for health media in Jordan, and proposed a set of recommendations to bring about improvements in the field. They highlighted the importance of capacity building efforts, including helping journalists acquire fact-checking skills and ways to identify credible sources for health and medical reporting. 

They also discussed the scarcity of studies related to health media in Jordan as well as the need to enhance access to health and medical resources in the Arabic language. 

Moreover, participants suggested developing educational courses specialising in health media and training health and medical professionals on dealing with the media.