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CAMPAIGNING efforts by Bahrain's health officials to help educate and inform members of the public have been recognised by the World Health Organisation, the United Nations public health arm.
Dr Amal Abdurrahman Al Jowder, director, Health Promotion Directorate, Ministry of Health, will be awarded the Sasakawa Health Prize for 2009 on May 21 at the UN office in Geneva for outstanding innovative work in health development.
She will become the first Arab woman to receive the award that carries with it a statuette and a $30,000 (BD11,470)_prize.
An energetic personality, who started as a family physician at the East Riffa health centre 25-years ago, Dr Amal said that she is looking forward to attending the ceremony and addressing the World Health Assembly in Arabic.
"It is a very prestigious prize and a significant achievement for Bahrain," she said at her office in Salmaniya Medical Complex.
Dr Amal is respected throughout the Middle East for her healthy living initiatives and is also a sought after seminar speaker and health workshop organiser. She added: "All this you see here in my office - every certificate, photograph, newspaper report and plaque is a result of our department's work in Bahrain and other Gulf countries.
"We have been trying to reach out to the community through different channels - working with different organisations, campaigning through the media, in booklets and conducting workshops and seminars.
"It is wonderful to be recognised and respected ... nothing can compete with the feeling."
Today the main challenge faced by Dr Amal's team is persuading people to adopt a healthier lifestyle and to change their attitude and behaviour before avoidable illness sets in. She explained: "The greatest challenge we face is from non-communicable lifestyle diseases like heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity.
"You can spread information very easily - it is just a matter of a click of a mouse. But, what is necessary is to empower people to change their attitudes, beliefs and mindset. It needs a lot of work.
"A cigarette company spends billions on marketing their products and no matter how much money we have we cannot compete with the fast food industry or tobacco industry. While technology is good, it also makes people lazy.
"Getting the message across effectively is not easy. Advertisements can be misleading and, when children see sports stars drinking soft drinks, eating hamburgers in the middle of movies it influences them.
"We are working very closely with senior health ministry colleagues and the current public health laws are being updated."
Dr Amal added that the community, municipalities and schools all have a collective responsibility to promote good health and it cannot be achieved by the Ministry of Health alone.
Her immediate priorities are to focus on her department's research capabilities and to evaluate the work it is undertaking.
Using information gathered from focussed group discussions and expert advice she hopes to produce a further series of health campaigns with simple and clear messages to reach different sections of society and people of all ages.
