1. Using Marketing to
Promote Health Literacy
in India
Dec 2012
Mumbai

2. What is health literacy?
Three stages of interaction with healthcare

3. Stage 1

4. Dormant
Defined as:
When a non-medical person has no health problem
 Therefore, no real interaction
What does he/she need to know?
How much health literacy is ‘enough’?
Health is a uniquely ‘all or nothing’ topic
 In the absence of a problem, health it is taken for granted
 Most healthy people have little or no interest in the subject
 When there is a problem, health can be interesting to the point
of obsession

5. Dormant – (continued)
 In a world where there are few general practitioners,
and the almost no “family doctor”,
 What is the health literacy goal for a non-medical,
healthy person?
 The ability to:
 Recognise a situation that needs medical care?
 Some basic first aid knowledge?
 “Know where” – where to seek help, who to turn to?
 The role of marketing in this situation…

6. Dormant – (continued)
 Keeping a general level of information flowing through a
range of media – TV, print, radio, internet.
 E.g.: magazine articles, email rounds
 How much is too much?
 What is the basic amount needed?
 Key question – who will pay for these messages to be sent
out?
 E.g.: Organisations to employees
 Reality check – how do we reach the same messages out
to rural, illiterate and poor audiences?

7. Stage 2

8. Preparatory
Defined as:
When a person has a health problem and needs to
consult a doctor
What does he/she need to know?
Know-where
 A general practitioner? If so, who?
 A specialist? If so, what kind of specialist?
 Where do I find a reliable and capable doctor?
 What will all this cost me?

9. Preparatory – (continued)
 This is critically important information for a person in
need
 A huge existing lacuna today
 Marketing says:
 The right product at the right price, positioned to grab
the attention of the right person at the right place and
time.
 Product:
 An information directory that can link the symptom to the
specialist, with contact details

10. Preparatory – (continued)
 Price
 A difficult question
 Invaluable when needed; dust collector otherwise
 Can there be a “Just dial” for medical services
 How does one monetise something like this?
 Place
 The internet - an enormous opportunity to reach the online
community
 Search engines could enable a hit by symptoms, specialisation,
etc.
 Question: What about the huge population that is not online?
 The potential offered by mobile telephones needs to be explored.
(Financial services in Kenya)

11. Stage 3

12. Operational
Defined as:
When a patient and a doctor come together for a problem
Health literacy should include:
 How does a patient explain the problem – clearly, simply.
 How does a doctor gain the patient’s confidence?
 How does the doctor explain the treatment – clearly, simply
 Such that there is zero-error comprehension and compliance
Patient literacy
 Recognizing the symptoms and being able to describe them
 Sticking to the point – Resisting the impulse to go on and on!!
 Solution: A junior doctor who takes down the details

13. Operational – (continued)
 Gaining patient confidence
 The equivalent marketing moment is ‘point of sale’
 That precious moment when you have consumer’s attention
 Opportunity to make a contact and gain confidence.
 Listen, hear, ask questions, pick up cues, probe for the
unsaid, ask tangential questions that might hold a clue
 Explaining the diagnosis and the treatment
 In simple terms
 Answering questions
 Explaining compliance required, its criticality, problems
of incomplete compliance

14. Operational – (continued)
 A junior doctor could come in at this stage
 Take over and explain treatment and compliance
 Repeat, ensure understanding
 Cater to the cultural context and include diet, rest, etc., in addition to
medicine, treatment steps, etc.
 Follow through (Cognitive dissonance)
 To ensure compliance, to inquire about progress
 To give assurance, to remove dissonance

15. Thank you