Speakers » Ann Mugunga

Ann MUGUNGA is a PhD Student at Hong Kong Baptist University whose research interests are strategic, organizational, health communication; as well as media policy and regulation. She holds a BA Mass Communication, Makerere University, Uganda and an MA International Communication, University of Leeds, UK. She has over 18 years’ experience in journalism, editing, media management, corporate communications and journalism training. Angella NAPAKOL, PhD, is a senior lecturer and HoD (Communication) Uganda Christian University. She holds a PhD (University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa), MS Mass Communication (North Dakota State University, USA) and BA Social Sciences (Makerere University, Uganda). Her key research interests are health communication, risk and crisis communication and intercultural communication.

This research seeks to analyze the messages that the government of Uganda uses to communicate to at risk populations in order to enable them take up the vaccination against Hepatitis B. The population of Uganda has a 52% life time chance of contracting the disease. However, of those who turn-up for vaccination against Hepatitis B, only 33% complete the 3-dose vaccination. This challenge requires an understanding of the instructional messages as communicated to the at-risk-communities. This research, to be conducted in Northern Uganda, among the populations with the highest risk; will analyse the media (flier, radio and internet) messages against the elements in IDEA model so as to “assess perceived message effectiveness and behavioral intentions”.