Revista de investigación de pediatría clínica

Risk communication as a measure to decrease child’s morbidity and mortality

Dr. Noha S. Hassan

Risk communication is a dynamic and interactive mechanism by which multiple stakeholders and concerned parties can be involved in decision making, management and prevention and control measures of many health-related conditions. Risk communication and community engagement have been integral to public health emergency response, and given that we are living in the era of emerging and reemerging diseases, proper risk communication approaches couldn’t be more important. In pediatric medicine and practice; children are not often the decision makers when it comes to their health conditions awareness and management; as such decisions are in the hands of their care givers. Therefore, if the care giver is not perceiving the risk(s) that children are exposed to, or not being cooperative as he/she simply can’t see the impending dangers in certain behaviors, then these care givers could increase the risk of the child morbidity and even mortality, in some cases. Successful risk communication approaches have been beneficial in managing vaccine hesitancy, communicable diseases prevention and control, road traffic accidents and many others.