The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is offering a series of workshops and training sessions for the media and health organizations from various regions of Peru.
During the month of June, PAHO held the workshop "Communication of risks and experiences of health journalism associated with vaccination against COVID-19" and "Communication of risks and experiences of health journalism", in the cities of Moquegua and Tacna respectively. For these workshops, the Regional Health Directorate (Diresa) invited the media and other regional health organizations, with the purpose of strengthening informative strategies to report on health.
Both workshops were related to vaccination against COVID-19, aimed at informing about the benefits of vaccination, to encourage the population to complete their full schedule. Likewise, the training sessions addressed topics such as the importance of continuing with prevention measures.
PAHO explains that risk communication is an approach used in public health to communicate messages of action to face problems and act in an informed manner, always based on evidence and taking into account the degree of danger that each health event represents.
In this way, during the pandemic, it is important to communicate efficiently about vaccination processes and therein lies the importance of the media and journalists.
The training day also allowed for the exchange of experiences, since it was attended by the journalist Gianella Tapullima, who shared her experience on the methodology of verification or fact checking.
It is worth mentioning that this program was implemented by PAHO with the support of the Peruvian Ministry of Health (Minsa) and the (USAID) as part of the American Rescue Plan project of the US government.
