Why should we study about media when we are working in public health?

Ans. Public health is defined as “the art and science of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through the organized efforts of society [42] . Public health seeks to create healthy social conditions. It includes ensuring fair distribution of social opportunities and risks. Social opportunities include education, healthful work and living conditions and prevention of threats to mental or social well- being. The responsibilities of public health also include disease prevention and health promotion. The media provides information (provides data), educates (facilitating knowledge construction and dissemination), promotes (advocates), entertains (eases stress), molds opinion (provides a framework of thinking) connects (establishes connections between people, events, place and ideas), records events or keeps records and transmits them to the next generation. This means that studying media should be seen as part of our efforts to foster supportive environments for health.