Health Communication
If you are already familiar with health communication, here
are some quick links to information and resources on persuasive
or behavioural communication (including
social marketing), risk
communication, media
advocacy, entertainment
education, interactive
health communication and THCU's 12-step
process.
Introduction
Health communication is the use of communication techniques and
technologies to (positively) influence individuals, populations, and
organizations for the purpose of promoting conditions conducive to
human and environmental health (Maibach and Holtgrave, 1995). It may
include diverse activities such as clinician-patient interactions,
classes, self-help groups, mailings, hotlines, mass media campaigns,
and events.
Health communication can be divided into persuasive
or behavioural communication (including
social marketing), risk
communication, media
advocacy, entertainment
education, and interactive
health communication. Click on any topic
to get a brief explanation and additional resources.
We
recommend that work with any type of health communication move through
each of THCU's
12 steps for planning, implementing, and
evaluating health communication activities as outlined
in our Overview
of health communication campaigns workbook.
Click here for
more information and more resources on steps such
as audience
analysis, setting
communication objectives,
developing messages and communication
materials, and evaluating
your campaign.
THCU resources
For an outline of all THCU's health communication
resources on this site, including our Overview
of health communication campaigns workbook, click here.
The following resources are for general health communication only.
Ontario Health Promotion E-mail Bulletin
The Ontario Health Promotion E-mail Bulletin (OHPE) is a free weekly newsletter
for people interested in health promotion produced by the Ontario
Prevention Clearinghouse and THCU. We provide information on workshops,
conferences, job postings, projects, issues and resources. Learn how to search
for information in our archives here.
THCU
Literature Searches
When needed, we contract a wonderful librarian named Barbara Scott to do literature
searches on various topics that our clients ask us about. The requests from
the last couple of years are posted here.
Journals of interest
This list, updated in 2003, indicates where journal contents of
interest to health promotion and health communication practitioners are
indexed and describes their related websites.
Non-THCU resources
The following resources are for general health communication only.
More resources are listed in the non-THCU
resource sections of our pages on persuasive
or behavioural communication (including social marketing), risk
communication, media advocacy, entertainment
education, interactive
health communication and THCU's 12-step
process.HealthComm KEY
This
database of health communication literature focuses on communication
research and practice in the context of public health. Developed
by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention's Office of
Communication, it is designed for researchers and program staff
within CDC and also for professionals, students, and others outside
of CDC. You can click on numerous pre-defined
searches, including various diseases and behaviours,
populations, and types of communication. July
17, 2002
Planner's
Guide to Making Health Communication Programs Work
The National Cancer Institute (US) has this excellent
guide (also known as the pink book) with
an excellent
glossary of health communication terms. It can be used conjunction
with THCU's Overview
of Health Communication Campaigns workbook. Updated
June 17, 2003
Health
Communication Partnership's M/MC
Health Communication Materials Database
You can search this
collection of health communication materials by country, region,
subject, type of material, language and producer. May
20, 2004
Benton Foundation
This organization
seeks
to demonstrate the value of communication by solving social problems.
It has an excellent collection of resources (most of which are
available online).
Communication
Change Initiative
This intiative presents resources (such as theoretical
models of change) and examples from projects that use communication
strategies with a development or social-change perspective.
Different from, but related to, the social marketing, persuasion
approaches, this is an important viewpoint for understanding
health promotion values in action.
British Medical Journal
This journal
has
a great deal of non-clinical material available for online viewing,
including sections on communication and public health.
The
Journal of Health Communication
This journal "presents the latest
development in the field of health communication including research in risk communication,
health literacy, social marketing, communication (from interpersonal to mass
media), psychology, government, policy-making, and health education around the
world." [from the website]
International Communication
Association
This is one of two major communication associations
that have a strong academic membership but are also of great
value to practitioners.
International Speech Communication
Association
This is the second major association and also has
a health communication division.
Saint Louis University Health
Communication Research Laboratory
This website covers the basics of tailoring--frequently asked
questions and examples of relevant publications and ongoing
projects. July
2002
Emerson College
This college
offers a master's
degree in health communication in collaboration with Tufts
University School of Medicine.
