Open Access“Colonial Virus”: COVID-19, creative arts and public health communication in Ghana
Author(s) -
Ama deGraft Aikins,
Bernard Akoi-Jackson
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
ghana medical journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2616-163X
pISSN - 0016-9560
DOI - 10.4314/gmj.v54i4s.13
Subject(s) - public health , the arts , health promotion , public relations , psychological intervention , health communication , sociology , medicine , visual arts , political science , nursing , art
Since March 2020, Ghana's creative arts communities have tracked the complex facets of the COVID-19 pandemic through various art forms. This paper reports a study that analysed selected 'COVID art forms' through arts and health and critical health psychology frameworks. Art forms produced between March and July 2020, and available in the public sphere - traditional media, social media and public spaces - were collated. The data consisted of comedy, cartoons, songs, murals and textile designs. Three key functions emerged from analysis: health promotion (comedy, cartoons, songs); disease prevention (masks); and improving the aesthetics of the healthcare environment (murals). Textile designs performed broader socio-cultural functions of memorialising and political advocacy. Similar to earlier HIV/AIDS and Ebola arts interventions in other African countries, these Ghanaian COVID art forms translated public health information on COVID-19 in ways that connected emotionally, created social awareness and improved public understanding. However, some art forms had limitations: for example, songs that edutained using fear-based strategies or promoting conspiracy theories on the origins and treatment of COVID-19, and state-sponsored visual art that represented public health messaging decoupled from socio-economic barriers to health protection. These were likely to undermine the public health communication goals of behaviour modification. We outline concrete approaches to incorporate creative arts into COVID-19 public health interventions and post-pandemic health systems strengthening in Ghana.