The Development of a Community Network Management Model to Enhance Participation in Health Risk Communication of the Seam Border Communities in Saraburi Province

Abstract

Background: The seam border communities in Saraburi Province are crucial entry points for communicable diseases which, if not properly managed, would affect the quality of life’s population significantly. Risk communication is an importance tools of health management. Therefore, effective health risk communication is essential to reducing morbidity and mortality caused by communicable diseases and all hazard.
Objective: To the development of a community network management model to enhance participation in health risk communication of the seam border communities in Saraburi province.
Methods: The mixed-method research divided into three phases during Aug 2022 – Feb 2023. First step was study of the health communication component environment of border communities in Saraburi province, and the second was development of a community network management model to enhance participation in health risk communication of the seam border communities in Saraburi province, and finally, to test the usefulness and feasibility of the model in practice. The samples consisted of the community network on seam border communities and the experts on health risk communication, selected by the purposive selected the snowball sampling, and the simple random technique. The semi-structured interview, the questionnaire and focus group discussion were constructed and used as tools for data collection; and the data were analyzed by using content analysis and descriptive statistics.
Results: The community network management model to enhance participation in health risk communication of the seam border communities in Saraburi province consisted of 8 processes; 1) Creation local health communication policies and measures. 2) Establishment of a committee for a manage Community Health Risk Communication. 3) Public relations of health information and promote health literacy on health communication in the seam border communities.4) Development of the potential on health communication for the family leaders. 5) Development of a smart community health learning center to provide comprehensive health information services. 6) Development of media and channels of community health communication and integrate of communication traditional culture with a technology 7) Participation in rehearse an emergency response plan for health risk communication of community network in the seam border communities between Saraburi province and the near area and 8) Evaluation of the effectiveness of community measures and community satisfaction on health risk communication of the seam border communities. The beneficial conditions of model were Leaders have leadership in communication, the community capital influencing self-management, and the community network strength.
Conclusions: The model was considered high level in actually utility (x ̅ = 4.41, S.D. = 0.79) and feasibility (x ̅ = 3.95, S.D.= 0.91) could be applied to the context of the seam border communities in Saraburi Province.