Twenty health journalists were on Thursday trained on health reporting at the conference hall of the National Nutrition Agency around the Independence Stadium in Bakau.

In his opening address on the occasion, Mr Amadou Sowe, Programme Manager, Health Education Unit, said public health workers and health journalists should develop essential skills in health communications to reach their target communities with effective health messages.

“The information world is dominated by ‘hazard merchants’ - those who benefit economically from the active promotion of products, behaviours and choices that pose serious health hazards,” Mr Sowe said.

He added that such hazards glamorize risky behaviour and a consumption ethic which uses its enormous buying power to push and keep public health issues in the background of health information activity.

According to Mr Sowe, public health communicators “are described as zealous, health fascists, paternalists or government interventionists” when they present an opposing view.

“As health journalists you cannot work alone and you must encourage, motivate and mobilize the media and the general public to make healthy choices, as you are at different times the media experts, the advocate and the trainers - and sometimes all of these,” he noted.

Mr Amadou Sowe however revealed that health journalists or communicators must understand the challenges they encounter in the information market place, such as “messages from those whose primary concern is not the health of the general population but their own profit”.

For his part, the president of the Association of Health Journalists (AOHJ), Pa Modou Faal, described the training as a tradition the Department of State for Health and the World Health Organisation have established to improve the knowledge and skills of journalists on health reporting.

He said significant development has been achieved, as far as health journalists are concerned, “which is as a result of the good relationship that exists between the Department of State for Health, the World Health Organisation and the AOHJ”.

He however called on health journalists to report health issues accurately and professionally to properly enlighten the general public.

“Health workers should give out adequate health reports or information to health journalists to enable us report, and accurately, health issues to the public,” he concluded.