MEN UNIT ONE : INTRODUCTION TO HEALTH COMMUNICATION
menUnit 1: What is Health Communication?
Intro to Health Communication
• Practice Skills
o Analyze audiences
o Understand audience segments
o Identify audiences based on characteristics
o Develop objectives and strategies
o Develop messages and materials
o Design and evaluate a campaign, as well as its project plan and timeline
• Public Health
o Concerned with the health of the community as a whole
o Mission: fulfil society’s interests and assure conditions where
people can be healthy
o A WAY TO DO PUBLIC HEALTH: HEALTH COMMUNICATION
Public Health: Clinical Health:
Focuses on populations Focuses on individuals
Monitor and diagnose health Diagnose and treat individual
concerns of entire communities patients for disease or injury
Concerned with health promotion and Traditionally concerned with
primary prevention secondary and tertiary prevention
• Definitions of Health Communications
o "Health communication encompasses the study and use of communication
strategies to inform and influence individual and community
decisions that enhance health." (Freimuth, 2001)
o "The study and use of communication strategies to inform and
influence individual and community decisions that enhance
health." (CDC)
o The essence is the provision of information about health to individuals to
persuade and motivate them to engage in healthier behaviors.
• Draws from Numerous Disciplines
o Health education
o Mass and speech communication
o Marketing
o Social marketing
o Psychology
o Anthropology
o Sociology
• Applications of Health Communications
o Public relations
, o Mass communication
o Mobile and social media-NEW TECHNOLOGIES
o Interpersonal communications- DOCTOR AND PATIENT
o Relations with stakeholders, communities, and constituencies
• History of Health Communication
o Existed long before it was defined by academics
o Much recognition in past 20 years of its value to public health
as a core competency
▪ Growing evidence of effectiveness in behavior change
▪ Healthy People 2010 first to include health communication
objectives; Healthy People 2020 expanded its role and reach
▪ Institute of Medicine report (2003)
▪ Association of Schools of Public Health published a communication
competencies for every MPH (2006)
▪ Growing recognition worldwide
o The field really has grown a lot in the last 20 years. It existed long
before it was defined by academics. But in the past 20 years or so,
it's gone through a very rapid rise in importance and focus within the
public health community.
The Associations of Schools of Public Health, which accredits schools,
published a set of communication competencies for every MPH. And
MPH programs now are required to deliver, to help students acquire
those competencies through courses like the one you're taking right
now. So this is considered a central component of the skills that
practitioners in public health, who have an MPH, would be able to use.
o
• Healthy People Movements
o Healthy People 2010 and 2020
▪ Healthy People 2010 Objectives
▪ Increase the proportion of households with access to the
Internet at home
▪ Improve the health literacy of persons with inadequate or
marginal literacy skills
▪ Increase the proportion of health communication
activities that include research and evaluation
▪ Increase the proportion of health-related World Wide
Web sites that disclose information that can be used to
assess the quality of the site
▪ Increase the number of Centers of Excellence that
seek to advance the research and practice of health
communication
▪ Increase the proportion of persons who report that
their health care providers have satisfactory
communication skills
▪ Other Health Communication-Related Objectives
▪ Increase the proportion of persons appropriately
counseled about health behaviors- So receiving
interpersonal communication and
counseling about health behaviors, like stopping
smoking for example.
, ▪ Increase the proportion of adults aged 20 years and older
who are aware of the early warning symptoms and signs
of a heart attack and the importance of accessing rapid
emergency care by calling
911
▪ Increase the number of positive messages related to
responsible sexual behavior during weekday and nightly
prime-time television programming
▪ Another point of recognition of the growth of health
communication, the Healthy People movement, Healthy People
2010, and then Healthy People 2020, which is now in effect.
This is the national US health policy
framework.
And this is just an example of some of the health
communication-related objectives that are contained in the
Healthy People 2010 framework. So you can see things like
improve the health literacy of persons with inadequate or
marginal literacy skills, increase the proportion of health
communication activities that include research and evaluation.
Basically this is about using health communication to improve
population health, as I mentioned earlier. And also to actually
get health communication more in use in public health
programs.
▪ So as you can see at the national policy level, health
communication has come to the forefront. It's a central
approach in public health now.
o National US health policy framework
• Association of Schools of Public Health Core six (6) Competencies
o Communicates effectively both in writing and orally, or in other ways
o Solicits input from individuals and organizations
o Advocates for public health programs and resources
o Leads and participates in groups to address specific issues
o Uses the media, advanced technologies, and community
networks to communicate information
o Effectively presents accurate demographic, statistical,
programmatic, and scientific information for professional and
lay audiences
• ASPH Attitude
o Practitioners in public health are expected to:
▪ Listen in an unbiased manner
▪ Respect other points of view
▪ Promote the expression of diverse opinions
o Helps build health equity and reduce health dispairty
• Summary
o Health communication is a main component of this course.
o It informs audiences about health and behavior change.
Elements of Health Communication and Social Marketing
• Main Components
o Health communication
, o Social marketing
menUnit 1: What is Health Communication?
Intro to Health Communication
• Practice Skills
o Analyze audiences
o Understand audience segments
o Identify audiences based on characteristics
o Develop objectives and strategies
o Develop messages and materials
o Design and evaluate a campaign, as well as its project plan and timeline
• Public Health
o Concerned with the health of the community as a whole
o Mission: fulfil society’s interests and assure conditions where
people can be healthy
o A WAY TO DO PUBLIC HEALTH: HEALTH COMMUNICATION
Public Health: Clinical Health:
Focuses on populations Focuses on individuals
Monitor and diagnose health Diagnose and treat individual
concerns of entire communities patients for disease or injury
Concerned with health promotion and Traditionally concerned with
primary prevention secondary and tertiary prevention
• Definitions of Health Communications
o "Health communication encompasses the study and use of communication
strategies to inform and influence individual and community
decisions that enhance health." (Freimuth, 2001)
o "The study and use of communication strategies to inform and
influence individual and community decisions that enhance
health." (CDC)
o The essence is the provision of information about health to individuals to
persuade and motivate them to engage in healthier behaviors.
• Draws from Numerous Disciplines
o Health education
o Mass and speech communication
o Marketing
o Social marketing
o Psychology
o Anthropology
o Sociology
• Applications of Health Communications
o Public relations
, o Mass communication
o Mobile and social media-NEW TECHNOLOGIES
o Interpersonal communications- DOCTOR AND PATIENT
o Relations with stakeholders, communities, and constituencies
• History of Health Communication
o Existed long before it was defined by academics
o Much recognition in past 20 years of its value to public health
as a core competency
▪ Growing evidence of effectiveness in behavior change
▪ Healthy People 2010 first to include health communication
objectives; Healthy People 2020 expanded its role and reach
▪ Institute of Medicine report (2003)
▪ Association of Schools of Public Health published a communication
competencies for every MPH (2006)
▪ Growing recognition worldwide
o The field really has grown a lot in the last 20 years. It existed long
before it was defined by academics. But in the past 20 years or so,
it's gone through a very rapid rise in importance and focus within the
public health community.
The Associations of Schools of Public Health, which accredits schools,
published a set of communication competencies for every MPH. And
MPH programs now are required to deliver, to help students acquire
those competencies through courses like the one you're taking right
now. So this is considered a central component of the skills that
practitioners in public health, who have an MPH, would be able to use.
o
• Healthy People Movements
o Healthy People 2010 and 2020
▪ Healthy People 2010 Objectives
▪ Increase the proportion of households with access to the
Internet at home
▪ Improve the health literacy of persons with inadequate or
marginal literacy skills
▪ Increase the proportion of health communication
activities that include research and evaluation
▪ Increase the proportion of health-related World Wide
Web sites that disclose information that can be used to
assess the quality of the site
▪ Increase the number of Centers of Excellence that
seek to advance the research and practice of health
communication
▪ Increase the proportion of persons who report that
their health care providers have satisfactory
communication skills
▪ Other Health Communication-Related Objectives
▪ Increase the proportion of persons appropriately
counseled about health behaviors- So receiving
interpersonal communication and
counseling about health behaviors, like stopping
smoking for example.
, ▪ Increase the proportion of adults aged 20 years and older
who are aware of the early warning symptoms and signs
of a heart attack and the importance of accessing rapid
emergency care by calling
911
▪ Increase the number of positive messages related to
responsible sexual behavior during weekday and nightly
prime-time television programming
▪ Another point of recognition of the growth of health
communication, the Healthy People movement, Healthy People
2010, and then Healthy People 2020, which is now in effect.
This is the national US health policy
framework.
And this is just an example of some of the health
communication-related objectives that are contained in the
Healthy People 2010 framework. So you can see things like
improve the health literacy of persons with inadequate or
marginal literacy skills, increase the proportion of health
communication activities that include research and evaluation.
Basically this is about using health communication to improve
population health, as I mentioned earlier. And also to actually
get health communication more in use in public health
programs.
▪ So as you can see at the national policy level, health
communication has come to the forefront. It's a central
approach in public health now.
o National US health policy framework
• Association of Schools of Public Health Core six (6) Competencies
o Communicates effectively both in writing and orally, or in other ways
o Solicits input from individuals and organizations
o Advocates for public health programs and resources
o Leads and participates in groups to address specific issues
o Uses the media, advanced technologies, and community
networks to communicate information
o Effectively presents accurate demographic, statistical,
programmatic, and scientific information for professional and
lay audiences
• ASPH Attitude
o Practitioners in public health are expected to:
▪ Listen in an unbiased manner
▪ Respect other points of view
▪ Promote the expression of diverse opinions
o Helps build health equity and reduce health dispairty
• Summary
o Health communication is a main component of this course.
o It informs audiences about health and behavior change.
Elements of Health Communication and Social Marketing
• Main Components
o Health communication
, o Social marketing
