Influence Of Orient FM Owerri ‘You And Your Health Programme On Residents Of Owerri Municipal Council

ABSTRACT

The study examined the Influence of Orient FM OWERRI you and your health programme on the residents of OWERRI Municipal Council, in carrying out this research study, the researcher employed survey method in which she used questionnaire to gather her data. The population of the study comprised the entire resedents of Owerri Municipal council which was one hundred and seventy two thousand, six hundred (172,600) which a sample of 399 was drawn. The researcher asked a research question and formulated research question, hypothesis to guide the study. Relevant literature was reviewed for the study. Data collected were presented and analyzed and hypothesis tested on the following findings were made that: Residents of OWERRI Municipal Council are exposed to ‘you and your health programme on Orient FM to a very great extent.

Listenership of Orient FM “you and your health” programme influences residents of OWERRI Municipal Council to be health conscious; engaging in constant medical check-ups as well as ensuring healthy living.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

Be it as it may, it is imperative to note undoubtedly that health is a complex concept that involves not just the sounds of a person’s body but also the state of a person’s mind and the quality of the social environment in which he or she lives. Good health and effective medical care are essential for the smooth functioning of the society. Social inequality characterizes the quality of health and the quality of healthcare.

Noticeably, according to Okunna (2017), the practice of public health has been dynamic in Nigeria and has witness any fireflies in its attempt to effect the lives of people in the country.

Meanwhile, since independence, major public health problems like malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy high maternal and child mortality and lately human immune deficiency virus (HIV) have been addressed through a concerted action of the government. According to Naveena (2015), social development coupled with scientific advances in the mortality rates and birth rate.

Be it as it may, Nigeria isn’t of the countries over which the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are developing sleepless rights concerning the realization of the Millennuim Development Goal (MDG) and progressive the sustainable Development Goal (SDG) on the health matters in 2020. The permission id due to the country’s soaring poor health care systems. Records from both organizations clearly show that Nigeria in terms of maternal mortality os only better than India (Maamaa and Akurega, 2016). This is not surprising as health is only given little or no premium and it occupies no pride of place in the priority list of the present administration.

Consequently, Dada (2005) quotes UNICEF as saying that Allison not well with Nigeria’s health sector.

This has led to the incident and high prevalence of illness which is usually caused by lack of functional information on vital health conditions, especially among rural dwellers.

According to Anofi (2010), the federal ministry of health is concerned over cholera HIV/Aids, meningitis and polio. Agreeing with this, Abudlsalami (2010) asserts that cholera and HIV/AIDS are deadly diseases that will kill many in the country. He further states that ,1185 cases of cholera occurred on Lugu village of Sokoto state with 9 deaths recorded. On his part, harmuna (2010) states that cholera is a notorious disease that breaks out in the county every year.

Other Diseases that are prevalent in the country according to WHO (2017) are: diabetes, cancer, arthritis, liver and kidney disease as well as hypertension. Each year, there are more cases of these diseases particularly by HIV/AIDS and malaria which shows that the people are either not learning the messages about these illnesses or are unable or unwilling to act on them. Many are dangerously ignorant about the symptoms and side effects of these illness. Knowledge has a key role to play both in preventing such diseases and in mitigating their side effects on individuals families, communities and the society.

According to Trough, Ichijo and Nomaka (2000), knowledge is known to improve decision making speed innovations unleash new ideas and accelerate learning.

The thinking therefore is that sound radio health programmes which are aimed at providing knowledge about health related issues will help improve the health related issues will help improve the health of the people Particularly those in the rural areas who suffer from poor health practices serious illness and disabilities.

What this means is that, in most communities whether urban or rural in the country, serious concerns and challenges exist in the areas of public health, family planning, HIV/aids and sexually transmitted diseases. Crystal clear from the beginning it is the fact that people in Nigeria face debilitating quality of life occasioned by the lack of knowledge on most illness. It is therefore natural that under such critical conditions, they will seek for beneficial information on these health issues from sources that they consider as credible and the mass media on inevitably their first source of such information.

The basic function of the mass media according to Brown (2015): to provide information, education, instruction and entertainment to the people. Media also motivate people directly or indirectly to discharge these functions as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation in a meaningful and purposeful manner in any nation for national development and in Nigeria considering the electricity misnomer, radio being a sub-stratum of the mass media, appears to be very significant to both urban and rural dwellers (Ayo, 2017).

According to Onabanjo (2002), the radio has positioned itself as the most accessible and most information patronized medium of mass communication in developing countries including Nigeria.

According to UNESCO (2001), radio performs the traditional functions of the mass media which include but not limited to the following: information, education, entertainment, socialization, motivation, debate and discussion and integration.

Radio because of its immediacy ubiquity and capacity to reach a large scattered and anonymous audience simultaneously, provides an excellent way of keeping people well informed of current events. It plays a vital role in shaping public opinion and supplies information on basic developmental needs which enrich the life styles of its audience (Nnamdi, 2015).

Indeed information gained from radio competitively influence attitudes and perception in such vital area as health. Apart from satisfying the educational information and entertainment needs of the society, radio is a particularly strong medium both with the general and specialized audience in the society. The society is influenced and the opinions of many are shaped by the messages and information they receive from the radio via its programs ( Moemeka 2015).

Baran (2004) describes a programme as basic product of radio station offers its audience and identifies radio programs to include; health, religion, magazine, culture and sports. On their part, Dominic, Sherman , Copeland (2007) say it is through programs that radio stations reach their target audience .

Examples of radio programmes as identified by Uganda (2006) are: news, interviews, discussion, magazine, documentary, drama and health. Specifically, in the area of health most of the campaigns for healthy living such as child immunization, family planning, the creation of awareness about the deadly HIV/aids pandemic, malaria campaigns, the need to avoid some health hazards such as unprotected sex and cigarette smoking are all communicated to the populace through radio health programmes

It is against this background that Orient FM Owerri has on its menu a variety of health programmes Heal the world, You and your health and Let them Live. Of these programmes, “You and your health” is specifically a sponsored programme by Dr Richard Okolie designed to discuss health matters that mostly affect people in recent times. In other words, it tries to create awareness of pandemics in the state; highlighting discussing and providing solutions to the different health issues prevalent in the society.

There is need to mention that many health campaigns involve a wide range of innovations and investment have been launched by successive governments in Nigeria, as a contribution to the improvement of the quality of life of rural people. Programmes such as the National program on immunization (NPI), control of Diarrhoeal Disease (CDD), Role Back Malaria, population and family planning, Reproductive health, STD/AIDS, condom social marketing, etc have been launched by the Federal government in consonance with the goals and objectives of the National Health Policy, which is based on primary health care.

An evaluation of some of these programmes which were proudly launched reveals that they did not enjoy maximum acceptance, support and utilization (Imoh, 2008).

Even though public awareness of the existence and efficacy of these national health programme is relatively high, some people will not utilize the health service provided even if they are given free of charge.

Notably, according to Eze (2017), several factors may be responsible for this anomaly, one major constraint to the effectiveness of their health campaigns at the national and local level, is the lack of effectives communication between the polity and decision makers in health, implementers and users of health services. Because of this lack of effective communication, efforts at mobilizing the masses for health action have lagged somewhat behind the technical and operational aspects of the pregramme, such that communication involvement and participation in health programmes has been taken for granted.

1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

The prevalence and incidence of various health problems hitting the landscape of Nigeria society year in year out have reached alarming propositions. In fact, Nigeria’s committed are at risk because, as NACA (2010) observes, the country’s population of over 140 million people face a number of endemic that could easily spin out of control. Nigeria has the third highest Gonzalez burden of HIV/Aids as 2.95 million of her population is living with the disease.

A number of Nigerian suffer through various health issues which could have been avoided if proper health campaigns on various communication media are done. That is it is expected above all odds that various mass media day in day out carry out campaign that further inform and educated the masses on their health

Be it as it may “You and your health programme on Oriented FM has been of significant influence over time on listens particularly as the programme exposes them to the various health related issues and how best to prevent themselves from infections. But what is of significant interest in this study is whether the influence of Orient FM Owerri You and Your Health Program on the Residents of Owerri Municipal Council is positive helping them solve their various health Challenges or negative; putting them in the dark of health related issue. Herein lies the thrust of this study.

1.3 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The objective a of the study where to:

1. Find out whether residents of Owerri Municipal Council are exposed to Orient FM Owerri You and your health programme.
2. To determine the extent to which residents of Owerri Municipal Council are exposed to Orient FM “You and your health programme.
3. To examine whether Orient FM you and your health programme influences the health behavior of the residents of Owerri Municipal Council.
4. To ascertain the extent to which Orient FM You and your health programme influences the health behavior of the residents of Owerri Municipal Council.
5. To discover the influence of Orient FM Owerri You and your health programme on the health behavior of residents of Owerri Municipal council.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The following research questions where enhanced.

1. Are the residents of Owerri Municipal Council exposes to Orient FM you and your health programme?
2. To what extent are residents of Owerri Municipal Council exposed to Orient FM you and your health programme ?
3. Does Orient FM “you and your health programme” influence the residents of Owerri municipal Council?
4. To what extent does orient FM “You and your health programme influence the health behavior of the residents of Owerri Municipal Council ?
5. What is the influence of Orient FM “you and your health programme on the health behavior of the residents of Owerri Municipal Council ?

1.5 REASEACH HYPOTHESIS

Ho:   There is a significant influence of You and your health Program on the

health behaviour of residents of Owerri municipal Council.

Hi:     There is no significant influence of You and Your Health Program on the

health behavious of residents of Owerri Municipal Council.

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study was carried out to investigate the influence of Orient FM Owerri “you and your health program on the residents of Owerri musician council. The findings and revelations of this study are however, significant in a number of ways.

First, the study will reveal to Dr. Richard Okolie the Presenter and sponsor of the programme  the level influence his programme has on the residents of Owerri and possible ways to make the programme more influencing.

Second, the study will reveal to the programmes department of other radio stations on the need to air health related programmes, so as to help increase the health consciousness of residents of Owerri.

This study will reveal to state government and non- governmental organizations, health agencies and concerned health practitioners the prevalent health issues and providing a link for quick action against them.

This study will furthermore enlighten the people on the need to listen to health programmes on radio.

The study will reveal to residents of Owerri and beyond the need to be health conscious and give more time to listenership of health programmes as well as engage in constant checkup at registered healthcare centers and hospitals.

Finally, this study will serve as reference material to further researchers who will find related areas of this study interesting to investigate as well as add substantially to academic and media knowledge.

1.7 DELIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

This study was restricted to investigating the influence of Orient FM Owerri you and your health programme on the residents of Owerri Municipal Council. The study restricted its scope to ascertaining only the influence of Orient FM Owerri “You and your health programme” posses. The influence could be either positive or negative dependent on the findings of this study. Thus, no other factor was considered in this study aside the influence factor.

Furthermore, the study chose to restrict its scope to only Orient FM Owerri “You and your health programme” to other radio stations in Owerri or any other programme in Orient FM Owerri or elsewhere was consider necessary in this study.

Also, the study was restricted to only resident a of Owerri Municipal Council. No other municipal Council residents in Imo state or beyond was considered in this study.

However, the researcher hopes that such delimitations will enhance accuracy of data and enhance direction of investigation of this study.

1.8 LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY

In the course of carrying out this research, a lot of problems is encountered. The first major encumbrance is that time within which the work is expected to be completed, coupled with the fact that the research was been done alongside normal academic work.

Another major challenge is the request of financial benefits from the respondents before filling out copies of the questionnaire distributed to them as well as the challenge of retrieving copies of the distributed questionnaire from the respondents on slated dates time of retrieval as some of the respondents were nowhere to be found.

Another is the challenge get of finance due to the present inflationary trends to the country’s transportation problems and risks of being on the Owerri roads to the related respondents of the study for retrieval of questionnaire copies.

In spite of the above setbacks, the researcher was able to put them under control ensuring none of the challenges interfered with the findings of data presented and analyzed.

1.9 OPERATIONAL DEFINITION OF TERMS

The following terms were operationally defined for clarity purpose.

 INFLUENCE: The capacity to have an effect on the character, development or behaviour of someone or something, or the effect itself.  The impact of Orient FM “you and your health on the residents of Owerri Municipal council. It could be negative or positive.

Orient FM 94.5: Imo Broadcasting Cooperation (IBC) Orient FM Is a state-owned Radio station. it is the radio station that airs the programme “you and your health”.

PROGRAM: A programme is a product or content intended for broadcast media. In this study, it is the “you and your health ” programme of Orient FM Owerri.

RESIDENTS: Those who reside in Owerri municipal council, who therefore listen to Orient FM “you and your health programme”. These areas include; Orji, Okigwe Road, Wetheral road and Tetlow.

OWERRI MUNICIPAL COUNCIL:  Owerri municipal is a Local Government Area in Imo State, Nigeria its headquarters is in the city of Owerri. It is therefore the selected council for this study.

YOU AND YOUR HEALTH: One of the sponsored programs of Dr Richard Okolie of Save A Life Foundation in Orient FM Owerri.

Pages:  79

Category: Project

Format:  Word & PDF

Chapters: 1-5

Material contains Table of Content, Abstract and References