Abstract
The role of health journalism cannot be overemphasised. It is a critical aspect in informing and shaping public discourse and government policy on healthcare in Nigeria. Yet, the area remains plagued by fundamental issues such as a lack of training, access to quality data, and a failure to break complex medical ideas down for uninformed audiences.
This piece explored the role of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for health journalists to improve accuracy, uphold ethical standards, enhance the quality of health coverage, deepen subject expertise, strengthen credibility, and help them adapt to the ever-changing healthcare and media landscape.
Drawing from existing literature as well as actual training models, this article extensively discusses training-based interventions, digital literacy, and collaboration with health and educational institutions. It thus makes a case for a systematic approach to continuous professional development within the field of health journalism to advance health communication in the public sphere and to bolster the national health agenda.
Introduction
What is professional development?
Continuing professional development is a process of continuous learning to improve one’s skills and competence in a specific field. For health journalists, this is a process of frequently learning and enhancing the quality, accuracy, and visibility of their writing, reporting, and editing skills to keep the public better informed.
These journalists can get such development through various forms, including attending and participating in workshops, conferences, media dialogues, specialised courses that align with trends, training other professionals, getting involved in mentor-mentee initiatives, participating in journalism groups that are related to their niche and the broader practice, as well as continuous online and offline certification courses and reading journals.
The Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ) opined that for health journalists to adequately empower the public with authentic and practical health information, there is a need for CPD for health journalists to hone their knowledge and skillset. This is a way to augment the quality, accuracy, and visibility of their reporting, writing, and editing of health articles.
This is because the large and vibrant media environment in Nigeria has continued to play a key role in significantly increasing public awareness on topics such as communicable and non-communicable diseases, maternal and infant health, and national government responses to communicable disease epidemics like Ebola and COVID-19.
But the professional grounding of most health journalists is precarious. Professional development opportunities significantly impact health literacy, as they shape skills in interpreting health research data, communicating such data, and ethical considerations therein. Ezeh et al. (2018) claim that the link between public health and the media needs to be “strengthened through training that spans the technical gap between medical science and the newsroom”.
Current landscape of health journalism in Nigeria
Looking specifically at Nigeria’s media landscape, most health journalists do not have specialised training. According to a report by SciDev.Net in 2023, most journalists covering health stories are not trained in science or health communication. So, reporting is typically sensationalised, misinformed or reductive. According to Akinyemi et al. (2021), these gaps lead to a weak public awareness of current health issues as well as ineffective national public health communication.
Key challenges hindering quality reporting
These challenges are exacerbated by the continued absence of access to real-time, verifiable health data. Reliance on unofficial sources or reports that are out of date is common among many of these journalists, resulting in variations in the information available.
Further, healthcare experts’ unwillingness to deal with the media also empties this gap between expert information and public information. For health journalism to achieve its potential, Veloudaki et al. (2014) maintain that journalists should be trained to critically evaluate the sources as well as the information “so that the complex findings are communicated as relevant information within a context”.
Benefits of specialised training
Professional training has been shown to have an important impact on journalists in mitigating these issues. Similarly, Okwor et al. (2018) find that “health journalists with specialised training are more competent in approaching health professionals, understanding medical terminologies and generating relevant stories that meet global health reporting standards.” Of these, SciDev’s Script Initiative stands out as an example. Net, which trains reporters in statistical literacy, ethical reporting, and interviewing techniques specific to science and health issues. Participants in this programme have reported feeling more confident about their work and that it is better received by editors and readers.
But health journalism is often unable to support professional development due to structural and logistical obstacles. As Anyebe et al. (2023) point out, especially rural journalists incur high expenses in travelling to training centres and often don’t have institutional support to take part in learning programmes.
Due to small budgets and staff turnover, breaking news rather than specialised reporting is often the focus of media houses, particularly those outside of the major cities. According to Bello (2015), training is sporadic and not spread evenly; therefore, since there are no standardised norms for health journalism at any national level, there are substantial areas in the country where the quality of reporting is deficient.
Barriers to continuous professional development
To address this situation, different models of ongoing professional development have been introduced and tested. Working together with schools of journalism, medical schools, and medical associations will create a synergy of learning. These partnerships help to develop shared understandings and give them easier access to expert sources, making health reporting better.
Skill-based training, which draws from the work of Frenk et al. (2010), focuses on skill sets including interpreting data, ethical decision-making, and online communication. This model is also very much evident in the field-based experiences and reporting that are part of the training curricula.
Proposed models for sustainable CPD in health journalism
Another potential avenue for this is community-based learning, which seems particularly relevant to journalists in local or underserved areas. This model also utilises existing community health infrastructure and existing media in the community to train people in an appropriate and timely manner.
Journalists also feel and see the realities of health more within their reporting spaces and can tell nuanced stories that resonate locally. For the Script Initiative, collaborative partnerships with grassroots organisations have provided an efficient and expandable training model that can be accessed by reporters in difficult areas and build better ties with local health professionals (SciDev.Net (2023)).
Leveraging digital platforms for training
Digital environments are also transforming the space of teacher professional development beyond traditional school years. In Nigeria and other contexts with similarly limited media resources, e-learning and mobile courses and online workshops offer a much more attainable and accessible solution than face-to-face workshops.
Mobile technology for learning, along with credentialing through blockchain technology, provides transparency, flexibility, and accountability for CPD programmes, according to Oladepo et al. (2024). Professional peer groups, international experts, and current health statistics are available to journalists at their desks rather than in distant locations. These platforms can also help with real-time collaboration and allow journalists to update their knowledge on the fly as new health threats emerge.
But there needs to be backing at a policy level for CPD to be sustained. There is a need for government and regulatory authorities to acknowledge the contribution of health journalism to national developmental aspirations and to fund it accordingly.
To address these issues, Akinyemi et al. (2021) suggest that health or health journalism should be integrated as part of the core curricula for communication studies in higher educational institutions and that media houses should develop incentives to train their staff. Having national standards for health reporting with ethical codes, quality guidelines, and certifications would also help to make training more focused and also to establish a minimum form of excellence.
The importance of ethical frameworks
Improving the quality, accuracy, and visibility of health journalism through ongoing professional development is a public good. They are trained to do a better job of ensuring balanced and informative coverage that empowers citizens, challenges misinformation, and informs policy.
The media, healthcare institutions, government agencies, and the public, among others, benefit from this shift. In the face of epidemics and general inefficiencies in the health system, as Nigeria grapples with multiple public health challenges, the media needs to be prepared to act as a watchdog and to provide the education necessary to effectively and efficiently actualise this duty.
Conclusion
The need for better health journalism in Nigeria is, therefore, not just an editorial issue; rather, it is critical to the health of the citizenry. Thus, by providing opportunities for training based on models that are backed by evidence and partnering with organisations to help with the process, the gap in skills can be bridged, and there will be more correct, ethical, and effective reporting.
The transformation is not simple, but it is possible and comes from working within an interdisciplinary framework, using digital tools, and working on the ground and in the community. It is now time for stakeholders to institutionalise these interventions within frameworks of national health agendas to make sure that all health journalists are given the ability to inform the public with accuracy, empathy, and integrity.
References
Breakthrough ACTION Nigeria, NCDC, & AFENET. (2023). Training program equips Nigerian journalists with health reporting skills. Breakthrough Action & Research. https://breakthroughactionandresearch.org/training-program-equips-nigerian-journalists-with-health-reporting-skills/
CFC Big Ideas. (2023, May 19). CFC Big Ideas holds USAGM workshops on health journalism for journalists in Nigeria. https://cfcbigideas.com/cfc-big-ideas-holds-usagm-workshops-on-health-journalism-for-journalists-in-nigeria
Nigeria Health Watch. (2025, May 22). Apply for the West Africa Solutions Journalism Fellowship. https://articles.nigeriahealthwatch.com/apply-for-the-west-africa-solutions-journalism-fellowship/
EpiAFRIC. (2019, August 15). Health journalism masterclass | Public health consulting – EpiAFRIC. https://epiafric.com/health-journalism-masterclass-2/
Nigeria Health Watch. (2025, July 15). Nigeria Health Watch announces fellows for the 2025 Solutions Journalism West Africa Fellowship. https://articles.nigeriahealthwatch.com/nigeria-health-watch-announces-fellows-for-the-2025-solutions-journalism-west-africa-fellowship/
Association of Health Care Journalists. (n.d.). Association of Health Care Journalists. https://healthjournalism.org
