Under the auspices of His Excellency the Acting Minister of Health, Eng. Adel bin Muhammad Faqih, King Khalid Eye Specialist Hospital, in collaboration with MOH's Relations, Media and Health Awareness General Department, and the Charitable Society for Health Awareness "Hayatona", will organize the 8th Health Awareness Symposium under the title "Health Awareness and the New Media", on Wednesday and Thursday 5-6 Muharram 1436H, corresponding to October 29-30, 2014.
The Advisor to the Minister of Health, who serves also as the MOH Spokesman, Dr. Khaled al-Merghalani, explained that the symposium seeks to highlight the role of the tools of the new media in serving health awareness and boosting health at the level of individuals and community. He added that the symposium also aims at increasing the efficiency of the workers at both the scientific and professional levels, by way of keeping abreast of the latest developments in this field.
Likewise, al-Merghalani indicated that the symposium aims at introducing participants with the new media, and how to make use of it scientifically in the programs and activities related to health awareness, in addition to boosting health and experience exchange in the field of health awareness and new media. Furthermore, another objective assigned for the symposium is to learn how to plan and carry out health awareness campaigns and programs using social media.
Al-Merghalani affirmed that the symposium is based upon a number of pivots, including: the relation between the new media, health awareness and health promotion, prospects for making use of new media in health awareness and health promotion, planning health awareness campaigns and programs using social media, building capacities and training on taking advantage of new media, as well as maintaining the integration of roles related to the concerned sectors and the community in the field of new media, in addition to keeping a close eye on the local, regional and global applications and experiments in the field of the new media utilization in health awareness.
Concluding, the MOH Spokesman, Dr. Merghalani, noted that the symposium targets health workers in the fields of health awareness, health promotion, and public health in general, besides health awareness workers in general and higher education sectors, and the relevant sectors as well. That is to be added to the media professionals and the public opinion leaders concerned with health awareness and health promotion in the community.