Health communication
Health communication is the study and application of communicating promotional health information, such as in public health campaigns, health education, and between doctors and patients. The purpose of disseminating health information is to influence personal health choices by improving health literacy. Health communication is a unique niche in healthcare that enables professionals to use effective communication strategies to inform and influence decisions and actions of the public to improve health. Effective health communication is essential in fostering connections between patients and providers. “Health communication is shaped by many influences, including personal goals, skills, cultural values, situational factors, and consideration of other people’s feelings”. The connections can be built through strategies such as shared decision-making, motivational interviewing, and narrative medicine.
Because effective health communication must be tailored to the audience and the situation research into health communication seeks to refine communication strategies to inform people about ways to enhance health or avoid specific health risks. Academically, health communication is a discipline within the field of communication studies. The field of health communication has been growing and evolving in recent years. The field plays a crucial role in advancing health in collaboration with patients and medical professionals. Research shows health communication helps with behavioral change in humans and conveys specific policies and practices that can serve as alternatives to certain unhealthy behaviors. The health communication field is considered a multidisciplinary field of research theory that encourages actions, practices, and evidence that contribute to improving the healthcare field. The use of various skills and techniques to enhance change among patients and many others, and focus on behavioral and social changes to improve the public health outcome.
Health communication may variously seek to:
- increase audience knowledge and awareness of a health issue
- influence behaviors and attitudes toward a health issue
- demonstrate healthy practices
- demonstrate the benefits of behavior changes to public health outcomes
- advocate a position on a health issue or policy
- increase demand or support for health services
- argue against misconceptions about health
- improve patient-provider dialogue
- enhance effectiveness in health care teams
Definition and origins
Health communication aims to increase knowledge by letting the public know what to do in a health crisis, be able to handle it smoothly and clearly without as much panic as when first discovering an illness or disease unknown to the public. Which research has shown that it can lead to behavioral change. It emphasizes that communication involves verbal and non-verbal messages between a sender and receiver. Effective communication is crucial for health-related outcomes and even situational analysis, which includes evaluating the audience to help guide the choice of appropriate messages and channels applied.
General health communication has origins dating as far back as the 4th century BC. Ancient Greek physician Hippocrates first began writing about the connection between diseases and the environment, laying the foundation for the modern understanding of transmittable diseases. Additionally, during the late 18th century, British Navy surgeon James Lind began formally documenting mortality among sailors in his medical publication Treatise of the Scurvy in 1753.
The term health communications was used in 1961 when the National Health Council organized a National Health Forum to discuss challenges faced in the communications of health information. The term was used again in 1962 when Surgeon General Luther Terry organized a conference on health communication to discuss how various techniques can make health information available to the public. The term was adopted by members of an interest group at ICA, International Communication Association in 1975.
The research of health communication surrounds the development of effective messages about health, the dissemination of health-related information through broadcast, print, and electronic media, and the role of inter personal relationships in health communities. At the core of all of the communication is the idea of health and the emphasis of health. The goal of health communication research is to identify and provide better and more effective communication strategies that will improve the overall health of society.
Research
There are many purposes and reasons why health communication research is important and how it improves the healthcare field. The training programs of Health Care Professionals, or HCP, can be adapted and developed based on health communication research. One major example of a specialized research program is the Health Communication Research Unit at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, aimed at studying the challenges to heath communication faced by cultural diversity. Due to there being a diverse culture that makes up the group of patients within the health care field, communication to other cultures has been taught and has been made a focus in health care training classes. Research suggests that nonverbal and verbal communication between health care professionals and patient can lead to improved patient outcomes. According to Atkin and Silk on page 496 some health care facilities, like hospitals are providing training and education materials to patients. The goal of hospitals doing this is to allow for patients to have a better outcome due to better communication skills. Over the years, there has been much research done on health communication. For example, researchers want to know if people are more effectively motivated by a positive message versus a negative message. Researchers examine ideas like, are people better motivated by ideas of wealth and safety or an idea of illness and death. Researchers are examining which dimensions of persuasive incentives are most influential: physical health versus economic, versus psychological, versus moral, versus social.Impact of the Health Campaign-After research has been conducted and analyzed on the effects of health communication, it can be concluded that a health communication campaign that is requiring a behavior change causes the desired behavior change in about 7%-10% or more in the people who are in the campaign site than those who are in the control group. Also, the effects are stronger for adoption of a new behavior than cessation of a current behavior, about 12% higher.
When evaluating the effectiveness of a health campaign, several factors are considered, including audience receptivity, the clarity and volume of the message, the communication channels used, and the broader communication context. Audience responsiveness may vary depending on the nature and framing of specific messages. The media channel and how the message is reached by the audience can affect the effectiveness of the health campaign.
Training
Health communication professionals are specifically trained in methods and strategies for effective communication of public health messages, with qualifications in research, strategic development, and evaluating effectiveness. Health communication is taught in master's and doctoral programs. The Coalition for Health Communication maintains a list of such programs.The International Association for Communication in Healthcare is a global organization aimed at improving the health communication sector between practitioners and patients. One major program EACH offers is "tEACH". tEACH is a specific subgroup focused on aiding teachers across the globe with tools and resources for promoting proper healthcare communication. The program consists of training modules, organized conferences, as well as project support.
Scholars and practitioners in health communication are often trained in disciplines such as communication studies, sociology, psychology, public health, or medicine and then focus within their field on either health or communication. Practitioners are pragmatic and draw from social-scientific scholarship, theories from the humanities, and professional fields such as education, management, law and marketing. Professionals trained in health communication encounter a wide range of employment opportunities spanning between the public, private, and volunteer sectors and have the opportunity for a large amount of career mobility. Examples of jobs in each of these categories include federal, state, and local health departments in the public sector, Pharmaceutical companies and large corporations in the private sector, and various non-profit organizations such as the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association in the volunteer sector.
Overview
officially recognized health communication in 1975; in 1997, the American Public Health Association categorized health communication as a discipline of Public Health Education and Health Promotion.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, online support groups, web portals, tailored information systems, telehealth programs, electronic health records, social networking, and mobile devices 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 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.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, it became clear that major topics in health communication include misinformation as well as the role of communication in addressing health inequities. Misinformation had a major impact on vaccine acceptance and people's adoption of pandemic prevention measures. Not only does misinformation contribute to vaccine hesitancy, social discrimination and stigma, but is also affected by the ongoing global trust crisis in science and official sources. This further contributes to behavioral and social divides and to increasing long-standing inequities. A narrative shift is essential to address these issues.