Talk it Out: BBC Life Clinic to talk health taboos

Real-life health case-studies are examined and health issues that are taboo or are socially stigmatised are openly and honestly discussed in the new BBC News Africa TV series, Talk it Out, starting on Sunday 30 September.  The ten-part weekly TV series inaugurates the BBC News Africa new TV programmes brand, BBC Life Clinic – a weekly show in which BBC correspondents from across Africa analyse African health, food and lifestyle trends. 

Talk it Out highlights topics that can be hard to discuss – including mental health and addiction.  The half-hour episodes include studio discussions further exploring the raised subjects, offering advice, including on how to get support.

BBC News Africa Health Editor, Anne Mawathe, heads a team of BBC News Africa health correspondents based in Nairobi, Lagos and Dakar, created to bring to the fore the continent’s key health matters.  In BBC Life Clinic, using TV and digital platforms, they provide practical solutions and advice, bring the latest medical and other scientific research, bring to life insights into medicine and food – and bust myths around health fads.  

Anne comments:  “Talk it Out will allow people with health issues that are difficult to share or even own up to, to talk through their experiences.  As they open up to the viewers, we hope that those who have faced similar challenges will feel they are not alone, that they can also speak openly and seek help if they need it.”

In the first edition, Talk it Out gives a platform to two people who share their experience of battling alcoholism.  The programme reveals the extent of heavy drinking among women and, in the worst cases, the birth defects developed by children born of alcoholic mothers.  

Talk it Out will be broadcast by NTV in Kenya and SLBC in Sierra Leone on Sunday 30 September; NTV Uganda on Monday 1 October; TV2 (ZNBC) in Zambia on Tuesday 2 October; and ABS Anambra in Nigeria on Thursday 4 October. Programme-linked digital content will be available via the bbc.com/africa  health index (BBCAfrica.com/Health), BBC News Africa social channels and YouTube channel. 

Later this year, the Talk it Out series also will be available in Swahili and French.  In 2019, BBC Life Clinic will bring another 10-part series.   

BBC World Service’s BBC News Africa hub brings together the production of multilingual content about the continent on radio, on TV and online on bbcafrica.com .  As it delivers content in Afaan Oromo, Amharic, English, French, Hausa, Igbo, Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Pidgin, Somali, Tigrinya, Kiswahili and Yoruba. BBC Africa ensures a pan-African approach to the output, offering its audiences opportunities to join the global conversation.  BBC Africa has teams based in London and across much of sub-Saharan Africa, and has well established production centres in various cities. Follow BBC Africa on Twitter , Facebook , Google + , Instagram , Soundcloud  and YouTube .