Potret Kesadaran Kesehatan (Health Literacy) Aktual Masyarakat Pesisir dan Masyarakat Pegunungan di Jawa Barat

Abstract

Some various communication strategies and techniques in health can be engineered to construct health literacy, that is a condition in which an individual has a capacity to get involved, proceed and comprehend information of basic health and health service required to consider the health decision for him orherseif and their environment. The health communication program can be designed to bridge the gap of health literacy in various community types and characteristics in West Java. The health communication is aimed at disseminating messages, influence, and motivate the target audience to have healthy behavior. The field of health communication today needs to be developed through some strategies and tactics intensively, either through face-to-face communication or through the use of media including convergent media. Based on the condition above, through the descriptive study, it was studied the portrait of actual health literacy in West Java communities, especially in Pamanukan district as the representation of coastal community, and Ciwidey district representing the mountain community in West Java province. The description resulted from this research would be the in put to set up the program of ideal health development communication in other areas in Indonesia having the similar social-geographical co ridition. The research contributed the description of public audience skill in evaluating information about credibility and quality of health service, analyzing risk alternatives and advantages of medical acts, calculating drug doses, interpreting the laboratory test result as well as using the health information for daily life. The research spec qically found the model of message packaging, communication technique and strategy as well health communication media in accordance with the social-geographical condition of the public audience.