فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

BACKGROUND: Health communication is a field that uses social and behavioral models to improvehealth outcomes and raise awareness on major health risks that threaten human well‑being.Low‑income countries (LICs) suffer from the effects of communicable and noncommunicable diseasesthat are exacerbated by weak health‑care systems, lack of awareness campaigns, and ineffectivecommunication tactics. This work aims to explore health communication research in LICs to findstrategies that help improve health outcomes in the future.MATERIALS AND METHODS: The PubMed database was explored systematically for publicationsrelated to health communication from LICs between January 1, 1960, and January 1, 2020.Publications were categorized according to country of origin and were analyzed with respect topopulation size, gross domestic product (GDP), and primary school enrollment of each state asobtained from the World Bank Open Data.RESULTS: Collectively, LICs published 796 contributions, comprising 1.08% of the total biomedicalresearch published by LICs and 0.27% of the world’s health communication research. Malawi hadthe highest number of publications per GDP, with 32.811 publications per billion US$. Uganda hadthe most contributions per population, with 9.579 publications per million persons. Ethiopia had thehighest amount of contributions per primary school enrollment with a ratio of 2.461 publications per%gross. The role of health communication in promoting HIV awareness and prevention was the mostcommon theme explored. Other infectious diseases, such as malaria, tuberculosis, and Ebola, werealso highlighted. Improving communication in health education was also explored.CONCLUSION: Health communication is a rising field in LICs, with research focusing on diseaseprevention. Efforts to amplify research are key to effectively utilize the health communication modelsand improve health outcomes in LICs.