A healthy nation is a national asset. Thus in Ghana where the doctor to patient ratio is 1 to
10,452, there is the need to have health information dissemination avenues where patients can
get basic health information without travelling to the hospital or clinic. Radio with its
ubiquity and mobility as well as being the most pervasive medium in Ghana, stand as the best
medium to help bridge this gap. There is therefore the need to examine the content on radio to
ascertain whether the health information disseminated is beneficial and useful to the end user.
This study therefore sought to investigate the content of health on radio, focusing on the
categories of topics and issues covered the structure and elements of health messages
broadcasted and the reasons for the selection of topics and experts who serve as discussants
on selected topics.
Employing content analysis and in-depth interviews, the findings indicate that majority of
topics were on public health (59.4%) issues, followed by specific diseases (37.5%) with
health policy and systems (3.1%) receiving the least of coverage. Follow-up information was
adequately provided on Ultimate Health (eight out of ten) but not on health Line. Also, both
programmes focused equally on prevention, treatment, detection, causes and advances in
research. Consistent with previous literature, all the topics had expert(s) discussants as
Health practitioners should harnessing the dissemination of public health education through
radio since health content on radio in Ghana does not deviate much from the literature.