Team Blitz India
CSIR-National Institute of Science Communication and Policy Research (CSIR-NIScPR) organised a lecture in New Delhi to celebrate the National Science Day 2024.
Addressing the gathering, Prof. Ranjana Aggarwal, Director CSIR-NIScPR, spoke about the importance of harnessing indigenous knowledge and technology for achieving scientific progress in India. She highlighted the importance of science communication for health campaigns. Chief Guest Dr. Shiv Kumar Sharma, National Organising Secretary, VIBHA, spoke about the importance of indigenous technology for Indian society and the need to identify indigenous knowledge and technology and integrate this knowledge into current science practices.
Dr. Rajni Kant, Founder- Director, ICMRRegional Medical Research Centre, Gorakhpur, delivered the keynote address
on “Understanding Health Communication and its Role in Disease Management.” The talk covered different aspects of health communication, its importance, the various barriers and challenges, the use of emerging platforms such as social media to communicate about health, and the need to tackle growing health misinformation on these platforms. He also highlighted the need for digital health literacy among the public and the need to train health professionals and scientists in communicating science while also training journalists and other media professionals in aspects specific to reporting about health. Dr Paramananda Barman, coordinator of this session, delivered the vote of thanks.
The lecture session was followed by a brainstorming session on the “Use of Social Media in Health Communication”. The session covered multiple aspects of the use of social media for health communication such as its importance, the challenges, the spread of misinformation on social media, and the different ways to combat this misinformation through promoting digital health literacy, creating awareness at the grassroots level through the involvement of various stakeholders such as government organisations, scientists and science communicators, healthcare workers, policymakers, etc.
