Health communication
Health communication
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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. 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:

Health communication is an area of research that focuses on the scope and implications of meaningful expressions and messages in situations or circumstances associated with health and health care. Health communication is considered an interdisciplinary field of research, encompassing medical science, public health, and communication studies.

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 (Helen, 1962). 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 (US Department of Health Education and Welfare, 1963). 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. (Atkin & Silk, page 489)

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. (Atkin & Silk, 495) 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. (Atkin & Silk, 497) 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.

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