Young Rural Women (between 15-29) In Ghana

Young rural females are a priority target population for public health interventions, given that these women typically are (or soon will be) mothers of young children. But development organizations working in Africa say they often face challenges sharing information effectively with these women, for a variety of practical and cultural reasons such as lower access to media and ICTs in rural areas, or social norms preventing women from being active consumers of mass media. For example, the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters published a series of studies in 2008 cataloguing experiences from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Ghana, and other countries in which innovative small-scale community radio programs helped to reach and empower an audience that was otherwise difficult to reach. [1]

The projects’ shared hypothesis—that community radio can fill an information gap among women—is in part based on the observation that “without access to information, the poor and marginalized, particularly women, are unaware of their rights and entitlements, are unable to challenge unfare [sic] decisions and lack the knowledge to participate as citizens and take effective action to improve their conditions.” [2]

Here we show how the AudienceScapes data on demographic and behavioral characteristics of young rural women in Ghana can provide helpful guidance to development groups (the analysis in this section is based on 307 survey respondents in the “young rural women” category). As shown in Tables 1 and 2, the data portray this group as relatively poor and uneducated compared to the total survey sample, with low access to media and ICTs. Few speak English, though most speak languages of the country’s predominant Akan group.

A full quarter of this target group said they had not gotten any information on maternal and infant health in the last year and those respondents were spread throughout the country. Despite the evident lack of information, less than 10 percent expressed any level of dissatisfaction with the information currently available to them about this critical subject.

Development groups thus face the challenge of generating interest and involvement among a target population that does not generally believe that it has a great need for such information. In that case, it is critical that communication campaigns work with and through trusted sources such as medical doctors so that these young women take seriously the health information offered to them.

As things stand now (based on the survey), radio and doctors were the most common sources of health information for rural young women—but even these sources had limited reach; about one third of respondents said they discuss health topics of any kind with a doctor.  Thus, projects aimed at extending doctors’ (or health professionals’) communication reach may have a meaningful impact—especially since young women expressed a great deal of trust in the information provided by doctors (note far fewer expressed confidence in the health information they get from friends and family).

Table 1:   Profile of Rural Women under 30
     
AudienceScapes National Survey of Ghana, July 2009 N = 307, who were identified as rural women under 30 (between 15-29)

This audience faces many obstacles to better maternal and infant health that will come into play when designing programs and outreach activities. In addition to below-average incomes, education, and access to information, young rural women were more likely than other respondents to report difficult living conditions:

•  Twenty-nine percent said their household has no access to electricity, compared to 17 percent of other respondents;
• Thirty percent said they have no sanitation facilities at home, and another 67 percent use pit latrines, compared to 19 percent and 63 percent, respectively, among other survey respondents;
•  Eighty-three percent said they rely on outdoor or public water sources (wells, boreholes, communal water pipe taps, rivers, or streams), compared to 56 percent of other respondents.

Programs focused on this target group clearly must take account of the sanitary and infrastructural limitations faced by these young rural women.

They must also consider how someone in such an environment gets information: most commonly from radio, doctors, TV, or friends/family. However, as Table 4c shows, information about maternal and infant health did not reach much more than half the target group through any one of these sources.

Table 2: Information-Gathering Habits for Rural Women Under 30
      
AudienceScapes National Survey of Ghana, July 2009 N = 307, who were identified as rural women under 30 (between 15-29)

Using this profile as a guide, development organizations involved in public health might consider this multipronged approach to a public education strategy aimed at young rural women:

•  Use the current most popular source of information on maternal health (radio) and focus on stations preferred by young rural women: notably, Adom, Peace, Obuoba, Nhyira, and Radio Savannah. Educational programs or call-in shows on these stations in Akan languages would likely be accessible to a majority of the target group. However, the survey results suggest that radio programs would not reach everyone in the target group.
•  Support an outreach program by doctors (or at least by some type of health care professionals) to build upon the survey evidence that doctors are widely trusted but not widely engaged by young rural women. 
•  Make better use of mobile phones and TV. Fifty percent of young rural women said they had access to a TV at home, but only 25 percent said they had gotten information about maternal and infant health from that source. What’s more, 68 percent said they have access to a mobile phone at home, but none had obtained health information by phone. Given the groups’ low level of education on average, SMS may not be the most effective medium (only 18 percent of this group said they use SMS information from a service provider or other source at least once a month). Television programs and toll-free call-in services would likely be more accessible.

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[1] Women’s Empowerment and Good Governance Through Community Radio. AMARC, World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters, March 2008. http://www.comminit.com/redirect.cgi?r=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amarc.org%2Fwggtcr%2Ftext%2FBook_version_WEB_EN.pdf 

[2] Ibid., p. 8.