Health Communication

Background

The use of health communication dates back to Aristotle who first described it in his anthology The Rhetoric in the 4th century BCE. Today, the humanistic theory of Carl Rogers and Abraham Maslow has dominated the fields of health communication theory. The 20th century saw the advent of better methodologies, incorporating insights from the fields of sociology, psychology, and linguistics. Mass communication media, such as radio, television, and the Internet, have established social marketing and advertising as important tools for health communication, with ever-broadening horizons in the 21st century.

Effective communication channels are critical to the success of public health programs targeting health behavior change at the individual, community, or population level. Communicating consumer health information is vital as it enables people to be aware of their health status and needs and to make informed decisions about a variety of issues such as adopting a healthy lifestyle, seeking treatment, and choosing suitable health insurance benefits, health retirement plans, and long-term care. In a public health context, it encompasses the areas of disease prevention and health promotion to improve the quality of life as well as the formulation of the health policies that support mass communication of healthcare strategies to individuals, communities, and the public. The targets of health communication can be individuals, as in physician–patient relationships; communities or specific ethnic or racial groups, as in many local and state programs or research-based interventions; or the population in general, as in national programs such as the abstinence program. Health communication should be culturally and linguistically targeted to reach all ethnic groups and written in a way that can be easily understood.

Effective communication is also vital for a successful physician–patient relationship. The explosion of information technology and easy access to the Internet has widened the use of these portals as [Page 485]providers of health information. However, as information available electronically is unregulated, it may be unreliable. Such information can be misleading and even harmful if not properly understood by lay people. People have great faith in public communication channels and tend to blindly accept what is reported.

Communication partnerships, usually forged between organizations serving similar clients and settings, create functional linkages that avoid replication of services, ensure uniformity in message creation, synergize expertise and effort, and are more cost-effective and successful.

Objectives

The objectives of health communication need to be clearly identified before designing and implementing programs. The two fundamental objectives are to promote change in individual behavior and to promote change in larger groups or the environment, such as in the workplace or at the local, state, or national level. At the individual level, two types of communication interventions are commonly used. In informed decision making, information is given to enable a person to make better health decisions, a method commonly used in medical care. Persuasion-oriented communication aims to convince people to change their health behaviors for the better. This approach is useful in public health interventions that promote well-established, evidence-based programs such as cancer and blood pressure screening, weight reduction, and the prevention of sexually transmitted infections. For the second objective of promoting change in large groups or the environment, advocacy interventions involve policy change or changes in the laws at various levels. Examples of these interventions are mandatory seatbelt and child seat use and improving safety and working conditions in the workplace.

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