1. IVSA 2014
International Visual Sociology Association
27th June 2014
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Importance of visual images in the health care industry

2. Author
Wambui Loice Gichuki
University of Nairobi
Bachelor of Arts; Sociology and Psychology
P.O Box 100312-00101 Jamia, Nairobi, Kenya Cell: +254723563762,
wgichuki63@gmail.com

3. RESEARCH OVERVIEW
My research paper is about how the
Government and the International
Organizations are teaming together to use
visual images to sensitize, educate, inform and
discourage individual behavior in the sub-
Saharan African countries.

4. In developed countries people enjoy better
health care, education, family planning,
and nutrition and women tend to have
healthy babies.
In Africa, however, few people have access to
medicine and malnutrition is a constant
problem. Lack of clean water and other basic
necessities, diseases, and human cultural
behaviors make survival difficult for most on
this continent

5. Reasons for health disparities
I. Poverty
II. Environmental threats
III. Inadequate access to healthcare
IV. Lack of knowledge and awareness
V. Cultural practices

6. Malnutritioned children in Africa

7. • In 2010, 414 million people were living in
extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Extreme poverty is defined as living on $1.25
or less a day.
• According to the World Bank, those living on
$1.25-a-day accounted for 48.5 percent of the
population in that region in 2010.
• The following are the major diseases in Africa
Poverty

8. I. HIV/AIDS
• Out of the 34 million HIV-positive people
worldwide, 69% live in sub-Saharan Africa.
• There are roughly 23.8 million infected
persons in all of Africa.
• Every day, 1,000 children are newly-infected
with HIV - this is completely preventable.
• Sub-Saharan Africa is the most affected
region, with nearly 1 in every 20 adults living
with HIV.

9. • More than 1 million African children die every
year from malaria.
• Malarial deaths in Africa alone account for 90
percent of all malaria deaths worldwide.
• 80 percent of these victims are African children.
• A child in Africa dies from malaria every 30
seconds.
II. MALARIA

10. III. TUBERCULOSIS
• Tuberculosis (TB) is second only to HIV/AIDS as
the greatest killer worldwide due to a single
infectious agent
• TB is spread from person to person through the
air. When people with lung TB cough, sneeze or
spit, they propel the TB germs into the air. A
person needs to inhale only a few of these germs
to become infected.

11. • Over 500 million Africans suffer from waterborne
diseases. According to the UN Millennium
Project, more than 50 percent of Africans have a
water-related illness like cholera.
• Nearly 1 million people die each year because of
malaria. Of these deaths, 80 percent are children
under age 5 in sub-Saharan Africa.
• Up to 90 percent of malaria cases are attributed
to environmental factors.
II. Environmental Threats

12. Environmental threats and lack of proper sanitation..
I took this photo from a slum in Nairobi

13. • 1 in 5 children lack safe drinking water in Africa.
• Every day, almost 2,000 children die from
diseases linked to unsafe water and lack of basic
sanitation.
• Lack of safe drinking water is the second largest killer
of children under five according to the World Health
Organization (WHO) and UNICEF.
• Each year diarrhea kills around 760 000 children
under five

14. 1 in 5 children lack safe drinking water in sub Saharan Africa

15. • Women in sub-Saharan Africa are over 230 times
more likely to die during childbirth or pregnancy
than women in North America.
• Approximately 1 in 16 women living in sub-
Saharan African will die during childbirth or
pregnancy. Only 1 in 3,700 women in North
America will.
III. Inadequate access to healthcare

16. • More than 100 million children under age 5 are
undernourished and underweight, which
contributes to 45 percent of all infant deaths.
• Every day, approximately 800 women die from
preventable causes related to pregnancy and
childbirth
• One in sixteen Africa women dies during
childbirth
• Pneumonia kills an estimated 1.1 million children
under the age of five years every year – more
than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined

17. Due to poor infrastructure and lack of enough
healthcare centers, the following are the
health disparities associated with them :-
• Infant mortality
• Maternal mortality
• Lack of Immunizations
• Lack of enough medical practitioners

18. • A woman in sub-Saharan Africa will give birth
to an average of 5.2 children in her lifetime
• An estimated 222 million women in
developing countries would like to delay or
stop childbearing but are not using any
method of contraception.
•
IV. Lack of knowledge and awareness

19. • Antiretroviral drug treatments can
tremendously decrease the number of HIV-
related deaths by delaying the progression of
the virus and allowing people to live relatively
healthy, normal lives.
• More than 1 million people acquire a sexually
transmitted infection (STI) every day.
• African myths like; HIV infections can be cured
by having sex with a virgin

20. Examples of lack of knowledge:-
• Associating diseases like HIV/AIDS with witchcraft
• Lack of awareness on cancer e.g. breast cancer,
cervical cancer
• Reluctant to take the ARVs medicines
• Refusing to use condoms
• Myths on curing HIV
• Family planning

21. • Female genital mutilation (FGM) includes procedures
that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female
genital organs for non-medical reasons
• Procedures can cause severe bleeding and problems
urinating, and later cysts, infections, infertility as well
as complications in childbirth and increased risk of
newborn deaths.
• In Africa, more than three million girls have been
estimated to be at risk for FGM annually.
V. Cultural practices

22. Female Genital Mutilation is a leading cause to teenage
deaths, this are the masai of Kenya

23. • When an African man dies, it is the responsibility of
his brother to inherit his widow. This has become a
key factor in the spread of the AIDS virus
• Girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die
in childbirth than women in their 20s. Pregnancy is
the leading cause of death worldwide for girls ages
15 to 19. The majority of child marriages occur in
West and East Africa
• Every 30 minutes a woman is raped in Kenya
• Child marriage increases maternal mortality and
infant mortality rates.

24. Example of the cultural practices are:-
• Female Genital Mutilation
• Early marriages –maternal and infant mortality
• Wife inheritance –spread of HIV
• Illicit brew-blindness and deaths
Illicit brew in Kenya

25. Importance of visual images
• Enlighten and educate
• Encourage
• Create awareness
• Illustrate
• Sensitize
• Discourage individual behavior
• Castigate behaviors
• Campaign
• Inform

26. Visual images can be used in the healthcare
industry to change the health behaviors and
disparities, It can be done through:-
• Billboards
• Posters
• Graphs
• Illustrations
• Advertisement
• Pictures
• Photographs
• Diagrams

27. I. Enlighten and Educate
Most people in the sub-saharan Africa are not
educated, the government together with the
international organizations has used visual
images to enlighten and educate the people to
promote better healthcare

28. I. Enlighten and Educate
Educate people that they can get HIV free babies if they seek medical help
immediately they know they are expecting a baby
I took this photo from a healthcare dispensary

29. II
Diagram of Healthy eating for Diabetes patients!
Educate people on healthy eating of diabetes patients, placed in hospitals

30. II. Encourage
The government can encourage its citizens to
do things that will promote the healthcare
industry and reduce the mortality rate
through visual using billboards, posters and
photographs

31. I
Billboard Strategically placed along the highways.
Encourage free HIV testing to enable one to know their status, the
billboard can be placed in the highways and also in the villages

32. Picture encouraging 6 months breastfeeding, it reduces infant mortality it
can be placed in hospitals the infantry wing
II
Picture of a mother breast feeding the baby

33. Encourage cleanliness and personal hygiene, the photograph can
be placed in rural areas like the primary schools
III
Photograph of a child affected by Jiggers, caused
by poverty and lack of personal hygiene

34. III. Create awareness
Creating awareness in the society is a major way
of letting the citizens get to know about the
diseases that affect them.
The visual images can be used to create
awareness through billboards, posters and
photographs

35. I
Poster creating awareness that TB can be
treated and prevented
TB poster put in hospitals, public means like busses and trains.

36. Billboard for breast cancer awareness
Creating awareness on breast cancer for early detection, cure and
prevention can be placed along the highways and hospitals
II

37. IV.Illustrate
Illustrations have played a major role in reducing
health disparities in our society. The
government has used various illustrations in
passing information and improving the lives of
its citizens.

38. I
Illustration explaining how malaria is transmitted, placed in
schools and hospitals

39. II
Illustration encouraging the family planning placed in the
hospitals and government offices

40. V. Sensitize
The government has sensitized the communities
in seeking medical help, going for family
planning and also immunizing their children.
Breastfeeding mothers are advised to
breastfeed their babies for six months
exclusively so that it can boost immunity.

41. I
Sensitize parents to make sure they have protected their children from pneumonia
Poster sensitizing parents on how to protect their children

42. Billboard on family planning
Sensitize women to plan their families
II
Photo credit: Courtesy of the Medical Materials Clearinghouse at
the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public
Health/Center for Communication Programs

43. VI. Discourage individual behaviors
There are many individual behaviors that exist in
in our society, most of the are caused by
naivety, ignorance, addiction and lack of
knowledge. The government has played a
major role in discouraging individual behaviors
using visual images

44. Photograph of a patient suffering from liver cirrhosis
I
Photo discouraging cigarette smoking it can be placed in hospitals and universities

45. Sticker discouraging unprotected sex
Discourage the ignorance of not using condoms
II

46. Poster used to discourage careless spitting and coughing
Poster placed in the public places, malls, hospitals to discourage carelessness in spitting
III

47. VII. Castigate cultural behavior
The African culture has got very many cultural
behaviors that have passed from one
generation to another.
The government has played an important role in
castigating this cultural behaviors by making
stickers and posters and putting them at the
affected areas

48. Stickers-against FGM
Sticker castigating the cultural practice.
I
Picture courtesy of http://www.stop-fgm-now.com/

49. VIII. Campaign
Several campaigns against diseases have been
set up, e.g. campaign against malaria and
polio, visual images are used countrywide to
pass the information to each and every
person. They placed the posters and billboards
in different placed from the chiefs camp to the
refugee camps and estates.

50. I
Sticker showing the campaign fighting malaria using mosquito nets
Sticker in a healthcare centre.

51. Posters for door to door immunizations e.g.
Tetanus, Polio and vitamins
Campaign on immunizations for infants
II

52. Sticker campaign on fighting Polio
Campaign to fight polio in Kenya by immunizing all children under the age of 5
III
Picture courtesy of: http://www.kickpoliooutofafrica.org/

53. IX. Inform
The government and international organizations
has used visual images to inform people on
different things related to health. They can
have pie charts to show statistics or even
posters to show their undertakings during
specific period of time

54. Poster informing people on the vaccine dates
Informing people on the Polio vaccine dates
I

55. More children have died from severe diarrhea, a product of contaminated water and
poor sanitation, than all the people killed through armed conflicts since World War II.
Lack of safe drinking water is the second largest killer of children under five according to
the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF.
II
Picture courtesy of http://www.eleosproject.org/12.html

56. Bibliography
World health organization statistics
http://www.c-hubonline.org/resources/mosquito-out-we-are
Picture courtesy of http://www.eleosproject.org/12.html
Picture courtesy of: http://www.kickpoliooutofafrica.org/
Picture courtesy of http://www.stop-fgm-now.com/
http://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/vaccination-africa
http://annapalmujoki.blogspot.com/2007_12_01_archive.html
Photo credit: Courtesy of the Medical Materials Clearinghouse at the Johns Hopkins
University Bloomberg School of Public Health/Center for Communication Programs