Learning from Designing Communication Material for Community Based Preventive Healthcare

The Healthcare sector in India is constantly evolving with the adoption of new technological approaches to help people manage health. MAYA Health works on preventive healthcare in rural/semi-urban communities in India with the intent of shifting peoples' habits to adopt proactive lifestyles. The current door-to-door counselling services provided are mostly based on verbal communication. The idea of the project was to establish alternate means of communication through different mediums which would be both knowledge based and interactive. This was conceived in the form of non-digital interactive communication materials that help the health workers in facilitating interactive sessions. Counselling was seen to be most effective when both parties were involved in the conversation and had an equal role in making decisions regarding their health. While working towards community healthcare in India, practitioners can use the approaches discussed in the paper to achieve enhanced relationship between the health worker and people availing their services.