In fact, such figures including the once-a-decade national census and specific data compilations on issues such as Tanzania’s famous Malaria and HIV Indicator Survey, have been helping the government and other stakeholders in planning and decision making.
But numbers in general have always been challenging for both the policy makers and their enforcers in digesting them into effective actions.
This situation, therefore, calls for better ways for the public and decision makers, specifically in addressing challenges related to HIV/AIDS, in the view to improving the people’s health and general welfare.
Tanzania’s, and perhaps the global HIV/AIDS reporting in particular, presents one case where such numerical digestion is needed the most given the pandemic’s social and economic burden on the nation and individuals.
Although the Malaria and HIV Indicator Survey which is conducted once every four years is detailed enough, the reporting on macro and micro policies seems shaky and may result in misinformation which could lead to inappropriate intervention efforts.
Although the reporting has evolved from the previously held approach to reporting the national wholesome infection and mortality rates to a more localized regional and sometimes district levels and that intervention has been taking such reporting improvement into account for over a decade now, the HIV situation remains challenging to-date with regional variation in infection rates growing higher.
It is alarming that Tanzania’s southern highlands zone has been the most HIV/AIDS affected area for some time now even before the creation of the new political regional administrations that resulted in the apportioning of the former and the situation has been surging ever since.
The recently reported 14 percent HIV infection rate in Njombe, a region that was part of Iringa until three years ago, for example, has almost tripled the national average of 5.1 percent; yet, the figures remain holistic and call for further breakdown for interventions to succeed.
But such numbers alone do not tell much about the annual increase in the infection rate for policy makers to be able to determine the HIV/AIDS increase for instance in ten, five or one year periods.
Although such details are probably included in the surveys and documentations, the persons sharing the information to journalists and others tasked with the responsibility of informing the public happen to skip such crucial information.
Even if the details are not as clear as they could be or that the variations are not covered at all, it is up to the experts to compute the differences by comparing the available numbers spanning the years that are deemed worth reporting.
It can be worth, for instance, to capture the spikes such as the increase from an estimated 11 percent HIV infection rate in Mbeya and Iringa regions in southern highlands as had been reported from 2007 to the present 14-15 percent in the same area as this will help in designing interventions and study the social dynamics leading to such an increase amid increased public awareness of the disease.
The same approach could apply to other endemic diseases such as malaria which is prevalent in Tanzania’s Coastal areas as it will likely increase public awareness on health issues and preventive measures.
Given the urgent nature of journalism in delivering information within a set timeline, most journalists do not find enough time to thoroughly go through the reports for such crucial but micro details which often times requires perseverance and expertise.
Moreover, the lack of specialization on the part of the journalists and information personnel in the various media and health research institutions complicates the situation even further, and although such loophole has not been documented as hampering progress in public information endeavors, the effects can socially and professionally devastating.
In addressing the discrepancy, the researchers themselves could, then, be equipped with basic information skills so as to make them tell their stories better by divulging all the elements of their work and put journalists in better position to communicate to the wider audience.
But no matter how cheap, easy and convincing imparting the communication skills to medical professionals might be, so doing does not pre-empt the need to revolutionize journalism by adding the data and specialization components to the traditional and still-enduring nose for news.
The specialization and data refinement approach to journalism will not only benefit health research or HIV/AIDS circles alone; it will and should spill over to other professions whose communication approaches largely dwell on numerical values or require a high degree of immersion than the general practical approach as is currently the case.
Moreover, the efforts to bridge the gap between journalism and data and specialization could be made more effective by establishing close working relationship between health professionals and mass media just the same way as between the media and politics.
Considering the fact that HIV/AIDS and other infectious and non-infectious diseases touch almost everyone in the society, integrating effective communication HIV and health research should rather be an easy endeavour to take on since it carries with it the attribute of human interest which is one of the most essential components in determining the kind of stories worth reporting.
The data and specialization gap may not only be a problem among journalists in Tanzanian and the developing countries, but the challenge of information accuracy in development communication is not worth ignoring.
In a world with enormous health challenges where the HIV/AIDS pandemic is still ravaging, accurate and immersed statistical reporting and effective communication of HIV/AIDS and other health research proves a necessity in the world’s efforts in relieving itself from the burden of diseases.
*Francis Semwaza is a Dar es Salaam-based Development Communication Specialist. For comments: E-mail: frsemwaza@aol.com; Phone: +255 71 646 6 044.
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