Health Communication - Overview

Overview

A goal of effective health communication is to create higher levels of health literacy within a society, by using tools and methods of communication to promote healthy changes and lifestyle practices. Health communication is a recently blooming field of study, with official recognition as a subset of communication first coming from the International Communication Association in 1975, and formal recognition from the American Public Health Association in 1997 within the Public Health Education and Health Promotion division. Careers in the field of health communication range widely between the public, private, and volunteer sectors and professionals of health communication are distinctively trained to conduct communication research, develop successful and repeatable campaigns for health promotion and advocacy, and to evaluate how effective these strategies have been for future campaigns. Clear communication is essential to successful public health practice at every level of the ecological model; intrapersonal, interpersonal, group, organizational, and societal. In each instance of health communication, there must be careful deliberation concerning the appropriate channel for messages to best reach the target audience, ranging from face-to-face interactions to television, Internet, and other forms of mass media. The recent explosion of new Internet communication technologies (particularly through the development of health websites (such as MedlinePlus, Healthfinder, and WebMD), online support groups (such as the Association for Cancer Online Resources), web portals, tailored information systems, telehealth programs, electronic health records, social networking) and mobile devices (cell phones, PDAs, etc.) means that the potential media are ever changing. The social and cultural contexts in which health communication occurs are also widely diverse and can include (but are not limited to) homes, schools, doctor’s offices, and workplaces, and messages must consider the variant levels of health literacy and education of their audience, as well as demographics, values, socioeconomic issues, and many other factors that may influence effective communication.