Health Communication, Overview

Health is an emerging area within the field of communication. Health communication includes the practice and study of communication strategies [Page 345]to prevent diseases or illness, and to promote individual and public health or quality of life. The pace of health communication research and practice has increased and expanded dramatically over the last three decades. Increased awareness of the incidence and the range of health issues around the world have led to the integration of research from disciplines such as medicine, nursing, sociology, psychology, law, and business. Health communication researchers and professionals have developed a variety of tools and methods to intervene at the individual level of behavioral processes associated with health and to advance systematic improvements related to the performance of health care organizations and issues within society in general.

Crucial milestones were the formation of the Health Communication Divisions of the International Communication Association in 1975 and the National Communication Association in 1985. In 2009, the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication also expanded the focus of its Science Communication Interest Group to encompass communication of science, health, technology, and risk. These organizations have given voice to a generation of researchers who had been working in the field in relative isolation. In 1989, Health Communication, the first journal specifically regarding health communication, was launched, followed by the Journal of Health Communication, first published in 1996. Before this, research on health communication issues were published in journals devoted to other social sciences and medicine and tended to focus on specific aspects of the relationship between the practice of medicine and communication processes. By the early 1990s, however, the field was invested with a theoretical and methodological rigor and was characterized by synthetic and sophisticated perspectives on the interactions between health care providers and consumers in a variety of contexts.

Current perspectives on health communication include analyses of communication processes from the vantage of senders, channels, receivers, and feedback. These processes occur at the individual, organizational, and societal levels of communication in health contexts or settings. At the individual level, health communication can help increase awareness of health problems and their solutions, providing individuals with actionable methods to prevent or treat illness. Interpersonal communication among health care administrators, physicians, nurses, patients, and their family members is critical to the delivery of health care and patient outcomes. At organizational level, health communication often relates to procedures and policies that govern health organizations and may involve resolution of group or system conflicts among health care providers. At the societal level, health communication addresses community issues such as health disparities, the development of social networks, and the role of support groups. Health communication influences the public agenda, effects policy changes to improve health care systems, and encourages the establishment of social norms that promote health.

Federal and state government agencies, often under the auspices of health boards, have taken a lead role in promoting effective communication. For example, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department publication titled Healthy People 2010 outlined a number of key indicators for health communication strategies focusing on health improvement. The document advocates education campaigns related to physical activity, healthy weight, nutrition, sexual behavior practices, tobacco use, substance abuse, injuries, and violence. Health communication interventions also have moved beyond the individual level to address global issues such as poverty, environmental issues, and needed reform of the health care system.

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