Underpinnings of Pandemic Communication in India: The Curious Case of COVID-19

Abstract

concerted health communication strategy was put in place to allay the fears and to quell the circulation of misinformation as well as disinformation. The government even announced that any misinformation or disinformation about the vaccines or their administration would be viewed seriously under the National Disaster Management Act (Mandhani, 2021), with discussions about vaccine diplomacy featuring in the media with India exporting vaccines on a large scale to various countries around the world. Health communication in India has come full circle. Health communication practices, policies, and the wider advocacy measures of the government in communicating about health to the masses in critical times such as COVID-19 and other such epidemics at various times need to be linked.Since its onset, the COVID-19 pandemic posed a continuous and dynamic challenge to health communication in India. It has redefined the way pandemics are understood and managed, compelling restructuring of the health systems, addressing the shortcomings, and ensuring the last mile delivery of health facilities. COVID-19 demanded a diverse, comprehensive, and strategised health message delivery model. India had to improve its health systems and communication strategies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The health communication strategies needed to be tailor-made in order to address the health needs, priorities, risk perceptions, and health-seeking behaviours of the people. The pandemic has also highlighted the significance of addressing the social determinants of health (SDH), which are essential factors that affect people's health and/or inequalities in health but lie outside the health sector (Abrams & Szefler, 2020). However, multiple discourses in the political, economic, and psychosocial domains have made the Indian experience of public health communication an interesting case study. This chapter aims to discuss some key facets of health communication during the pandemic in the Indian context. While attempting to understand the various perspectives of pandemics historically, an attempt is made to elucidate how the SDH defined the contours of public health communication. This chapter also explores the interlinkages of health communication strategies with various extraneous factors that influence SDH. Such determinants during a pandemic called for strategic shifts in economic policies

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