Health Education for Making Consumer Empowered; Evidence From Chronic Kidney Disease Endemic Regions in Sri Lanka

Abstract

Risk has is a modern concept of control which directly influencing on the general decision making. The risk of being victim of a disease changed the behavior of the individuals. With the increasing risk and the reactions of the individuals on the risk make the critical discussion in behavioral studies. Health risk as a global consent of the general public, policy makers and the regulatory bodies has continuously attending on addressing the health risk reduction methods. Similarly the CKDu as the emerging global health issue especially in the developing world has been highlighted the importance of intervention from the regulatory bodies. With the increasing attention on the matter the govern-ments are using different forms of consumer education programs. But the current statistics on effec-tiveness education programs reviles that the education programs have less ability to change the indi-vidual behaviors. Therefore the study attempt to review the existing literature to explain the theoreti-cal justification on the less effectiveness of the education programs. For the purpose the study has reviewed the theoretical publications and highlighted that the consumer understanding on the risk factors and the method of risk reeducation is not only assessed based on the external information process but it will also influenced by the social conversation and the social construction of the risk assessment. Finally the study emphasis that the educational programs on CKDu to work as the meth-ods altering the consumer behavior to reduce the CKDu risk. The development of the programs need to concentrate on the conversational and the construction perspectives of the risk assessment and the responding behaviors which is been identified as the future study requirement by the researcher. KEYWORDS: Risk, decision making, consumer behavior, Consumer education