Re-Imagining African Traditional Health Practitioners at the Centre of Health Crisis Communication Through Co-Creative Strategic Communication

This chapter presents a co-creative strategic communication perspective grounded in participatory engagement, rethinking the role of African Traditional Health Practitioners (ATHPs) as key players in health crisis communication. Using the typhoid and measles outbreak in South Africa in 2025 as a case study, the chapter challenges prevailing biomedical and top-down crisis communication paradigms that have historically marginalised ATHPs and ignored the sociocultural factors that influence public health behaviour. To improve message legitimacy, uptake, and behavioural compliance in health crises, it highlights the communicative competencies of ATHPs, which are based in indigenous knowledge systems, communal trust networks, and culturally relevant modes of meaning-making. The chapter argues that centering ATHPs may not only improve the efficacy and equity of health crisis communication but also contribute to decolonising public health practice in South Africa.