Evaluation of health information needs and dissemination among market women in rural communities in Ghana

Market women in rural communities need health information and due to their work and settlement, looking into health information disseminating methods are critical to understand how they can be effectively reached. Hence, this study investigated the health information needs and dissemination methods available to market women in rural communities. The study employed a qualitative research approach to investigate the phenomenon among market women within the Keta Municipality of Ghana. Three rural communities within the Keta municipality were employed for the study. The study employed the interpretivist research paradigm, semi-structured interview and focus group discussion for the collection of qualitative data from market women and public health professionals. The convenience sampling technique was used for the selection of market women and the purposive sampling for the selection of health professionals who participated in the study. The findings of the study revealed that the rural market women needed health information on personal hygiene, nutrition, rest and illness to take care of themselves. Particularly, the study established that the dissemination of health information to market women in their local dialect enabled the dissemination efforts to be effective. For implication, the study highlights the crucial need for targeted health information dissemination by stakeholders to help reach market women in rural communities and the need for further research to look into strengthening health dissemination efforts in other rural communities and also include women in other occupations such as farmers among others.