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"Colonial Virus": COVID-19, creative arts and public health communication in Ghana.
- Source :
-
Ghana Medical Journal . 2020 Supplement, Vol. 54 Issue 4, p86-96. 11p. - Publication Year :
- 2020
-
Abstract
- Since March 2020, Ghana's creative arts communities have tracked the complex facets of the COVID-19 pandemic through various art forms. This paper reports a study that analysed selected 'COVID art forms' through arts and health and critical health psychology frameworks. Art forms produced between March and July 2020, and available in the public sphere - traditional media, social media and public spaces - were collated. The data consisted of comedy, cartoons, songs, murals and textile designs. Three key functions emerged from analysis: health promotion (comedy, cartoons, songs); disease prevention (masks); and improving the aesthetics of the healthcare environment (murals). Textile designs performed broader socio-cultural functions of memorialising and political advocacy. Similar to earlier HIV/AIDS and Ebola arts interventions in other African countries, these Ghanaian COVID art forms translated public health information on COVID-19 in ways that connected emotionally, created social awareness and improved public understanding. However, some art forms had limitations: for example, songs that edutained using fear-based strategies or promoting conspiracy theories on the origins and treatment of COVID-19, and state-sponsored visual art that represented public health messaging decoupled from socio-economic barriers to health protection. These were likely to undermine the public health communication goals of behaviour modification. We outline concrete approaches to incorporate creative arts into COVID-19 public health interventions and post-pandemic health systems strengthening in Ghana. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Subjects :
- *MEDICAL communication
*PUBLIC art
*COVID-19
*COVID-19 pandemic
*PUBLIC health
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00169560
- Volume :
- 54
- Issue :
- 4
- Database :
- Academic Search Index
- Journal :
- Ghana Medical Journal
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 148249032
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.4314/gmj.v54i4s.13