The Impact of Media and Information

Literacy to Health Sector in Sta. Rosa,

Laguna
GROUP CASE STUDY BY:

Burns, Trinity

Camposagrado, China Lei

Domingo, Arianne Ysabelle

Gunio, Eve Florieze

Flores, Allyannah Dash Marion

Nuevas, Gianna Angela

According to the Moscow Declaration on Media and Information Literacy (2012), Media and
Information Literacy (MIL) is a combination of knowledge, attitudes, skills, and practices required to
access, analyze, evaluate, use, produce, and communicate information and knowledge in creative, legal
and ethical ways that respect human rights. As media and information continue to increase each day
and become abundant that it can be found anywhere, anytime.

With the amount of information that is available today, critical thinking skills may help people
identify which sources are reliable and would be able to filter through pools of information to get the
truth. Media literacy could also be used to obtain new knowledge, perspectives, and cultures t hat most
people would not have known; it helps people to know more about what is happening around them
which urges them to make a change.

Obtaining proper media and information literacy skills is essential especially when it comes to
people’s healthcare. As most people know, information concerning the health sector can change and
improve quickly; treatments like lobotomies and such were so widely used before with best intentions
for treating patients but with a quick skim of the available resource s and literature now would dissuade
present healthcare professionals from doing them in modern clinical settings. And with the media
continuously evolving, some individuals find it hard to catch up with the latest changes as the new
media can be easily manipulated and used by people with ill intentions.

The impact of media, in general, has both positive and negative outcomes. The positive outcome is
that information can now be spread easily to other individuals, and it also helps people connect w ith
each other despite the long distance. While the negative outcome, on the other hand, is that the people
who have knowledge on how to use the media, can spread false information that could harm others.

The present technology that we use can have an impact on the health industry. It is largely
influenced by the news and the people’s feedback on it. Different reactions develop as a result of the
usage of media to disseminate health-related news. This is where both good and bad things happen in
the media.

The health sector has a lot of negative consequences. The media can be used to provide reviews,
propagate false information, and make unfavorable comments regarding health-related issues. A fake
symptom, for example, can spread from person to person. Because many people do not know how to
properly check facts, this information can spread, leading to people believing it is true. Another way to
do this is through reviews. People can leave unfavorable comments or evaluations regarding the
government’s health services, and if they do, their services and expectations would probably suffer as a
result.

There are positive and negative consequences to everything. The media can be utilized to raise
awareness, circulate news, and make announcements regarding the health services provided by the City
Government of Sta. Rosa. The city’s Facebook page uses social media to publicize vaccination
announcements. When and where. This makes it easier to inform individuals about the services they're
providing, instead of making a concerted effort to inform everyone individually, using social media may
be a more efficient and effective approach to do it. This can also assist to increase awareness about
many ailments, but due to the dangers of the media, this could also be misleading and make the
situation worse.

In Sta. Rosa City’s health sector, there are a huge amount of problems, some of them are mostly
related to the COVID-19 virus and those are the morbidity rate, mortality rate, the number of hospitals
fully occupied due to the high rates of cases of the virus, and more. But the major problem in this sector
is within the high mortality rate, as pneumonia is the one most responsible for it.

Now the media’s impact on the main issue: the high mortality rate in Sta. Rosa. Where pneumonia
and other non-communicable diseases are responsible. They used the media to disseminate information
about their city as well as the diseases that cause the mortality rate to rise or decline. This raises public
awareness about prevalent diseases that might be harmful to people and informs them about what to
look out for.

There are ways to lower the rates of cases with pneumonia and this is through getting flu vaccines
every year, practicing a healthy diet and lifestyle, having good hygiene, and staying away from vices
especially smoking. But the best way to prevent pneumonia is to get the flu shots once a year.

It is the city government’s responsibility for the people’s healthcare, so, therefore the government
should implement giving free flu vaccine shots to every single person residing in Sta. Rosa City. This
should be implemented by starting with making a list of all the people eligible for the vaccine, followed
by creating a plan on how the schedule of vaccination should be. After planning the schedule, medical
workers and volunteers are encouraged to take part in the vaccination, which is then followed by the
vaccination proper that can be done in a specific place or through medical workers going from house to
house.

The flu shot has many benefits and one of them is that it could prevent the risk of getting
pneumonia which is the leading cause of flu-related hospitalizations and deaths. The vaccine could also
improve and strengthen an individual’s immune system which can help fight other diseases and viruses
that attempt to enter one’s body. And if every single person living in the city of Sta. Rosa gets a flu shot,
this could result in cases of pneumonia lower down.

In the situation that the country is in today, tons of problems emerge in different aspects, but it is
difficult when it is in the health sector of a certain locality. And pneumonia has been the biggest
problem circulating in the city of Sta. Rosa. The media somehow takes a huge part in this, both in a
positive and negative way. The positive part of this is that people are informed easily through social
media about the deadly sickness, while the negative is that the media can spread false informati on
about it.