health communication health communication health communication is the study and practice of communicating promotional health information, such as in public health campaigns, health education, and between doctor and patient. 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 allows professionals to use communication strategies to inform and influence decisions and actions of the public to improve health. because effective health communication must be tailored for the audience and the situation, research into health communication seeks to refine communication strategies to inform people about ways to enhance health or to avoid specific health risks. academically, health communication is a discipline within communication studies. health communication may variously seek to: increase audience knowledge and awareness of a health issue influence behaviors and attitudes toward a health issue demonstrate healthy practices demonstrate the benefits of behavior changes to public health outcomes advocate a position on a health issue or policy increase demand or support for health services argue against misconceptions about health improve patient-provider dialogue enhance effectiveness in health care teams definition and origins 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. 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) research there are many purposes and reasons why health communication research is important and how it betters the health care 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. when assessing how affective a health campaign is, the key determinant is the degree of audience reception, the quality and quantity of the message, the dissemination channels, and the larger communication environment. it is possible that an audience can be more receptive to some messages than others. the media channel and how the message is reached by the audience can affect the effectiveness of the health campaign. (atkin & silk, page 498) the efforts and effects of health messages and communication are often counter affected by alcohol and tobacco commercials. the advertisement for these items is often made to be glamorous and will contradict what was said in the health campaign. this can lead to the efforts of the health communication seem to be pointless. training health communication professionals are specifically trained in methods and strategies for effective communication of public health messages, with qualifications in research, strategic development, and evaluating effectiveness. health communication is taught in master's and doctoral programs. the coalition for health communication maintains a list of such programs. the international association for communication in healthcare (each) is a global organization aimed at improving the health communication sector between practitioners and patients. one major program each offers is "teach". teach is a specific subgroup focused on aiding teachers across the globe with tools and resources for promoting proper healthcare communication. the program consists of training modules, organized conferences, as well as project support. scholars and practitioners in health communication are often trained in disciplines such as communication studies, sociology, psychology, public health, or medicine and then focus within their field on either health or communication. practitioners are pragmatic and draw from social-scientific scholarship, theories from the humanities, and professional fields such as education, management, law and marketing (maibach 2008). professionals trained in health communication encounter a wide range of employment opportunities spanning between the public, private, and volunteer sectors and have the opportunity for a large amount of career mobility. examples of jobs in each of these categories include federal, state, and local health departments in the public sector, pharmaceutical companies and large corporations in the private sector, and various non-profit organizations such as the american cancer society and the american heart association in the volunteer sector. overview international communication association officially recognized health communication in 1975; in 1997, the american public health association categorised health communication as a discipline of public health education and health promotion. careers in the field of health communication range widely between the public, private, and volunteer sectors and professionals of health communication are distinctively trained to conduct communication research, develop successful and repeatable campaigns for health promotion and advocacy, and to evaluate how effective these strategies have been for future campaigns. clear communication is essential to successful public health practice at every level of the ecological model: intrapersonal, interpersonal, group, organizational, and societal. in each instance of health communication, there must be careful deliberation concerning the appropriate channel for messages to best reach the target audience, ranging from face-to-face interactions to television, internet, and other forms of mass media. the recent explosion of new internet communication technologies, particularly through the development of health websites (such as medlineplus, healthfinder, and webmd), online support groups (such as the association for cancer online resources), web portals, tailored information systems, telehealth programs, electronic health records, social networking, and mobile devices (cell phones, pdas, etc.) means that the potential media are ever changing. the social and cultural contexts in which health communication occurs are also widely diverse and can include (but are not limited to) homes, schools, doctor's offices, and workplaces, and messages must consider the variant levels of health literacy and education of their audience, as well as demographics, values, socioeconomic issues, and many other factors that may influence effective communication. during the covid-19 pandemic, it became clear that major topics in health communication include misinformation as well as the role of communication in addressing health inequities. misinformation had a major impact on vaccine acceptance and people’s adoption of pandemic prevention measures. not only does misinformation contribute to vaccine hesitancy, social discrimination and stigma, but is also affected by the ongoing global trust crisis in science and official sources. this further contributes to behavioural and social divides and to increasing long-standing inequities. a narrative shift is essential to address these issues. critical health communication critical health communication refers to scholarship that interrogates "how meanings and enactments of health are tied to issues of power through the systematic construction and maintenance of inequalities." it examines links with culture, resources, and other social structures. it is distinct from mainstream health communication in its emphasis on qualitative and interpretive methods, and its attention to the ideological processes that underpin shared understandings of health. unlike much mainstream health communication, most critical health communication holds that simply circulating better quality, or more visible message about health is not enough to meaningfully influence health outcomes or correct health care disparities. the first comprehensive review of critical health communication was published in 2008, and since then the volume of health communication research taking a critical approach has steadily increased. strategies and methods tailoring a health message is one strategy for persuasive health communication. for messages of health communication to reach selected audiences accurately and quickly, health communication professionals must assemble a collection of superior and audience appropriate information that target population segments. understanding the audience for the information is critical to effective delivery. communication is an enigma that is detrimental to the healthcare world and to the resulting health of a patient. communication is an activity that involves oral speech, voice, tone, nonverbal body language, listening and more. it is a process for a mutual understanding to come at hand during interpersonal connections. a patient's communication with their healthcare team and vice versa, affects the outcome of their health. strong, clear, and positive relationships with physicians can chronically improve and increase the condition of a certain patient. through two approaches, the biomedical model and the biopsychosocial model; this can be successfully achieved. evidence has shown that communication and its traditions have altered throughout the years. with the use of many new discoveries and the changes within our technology market, communication has severely improved and become instantaneous. communicators need to continually synthesize knowledge from a range of other scholarly disciplines including marketing, psychology, and behavioural sciences. once this information has been collected, professionals can choose from a variety of methods and strategies of communication that they believe would best convey their message. these methods include campaigns, entertainment advocacy, media advocacy, new technologies, and interpersonal communication. campaigns health communication campaigns are arguably the most utilized and effective method for spreading public health messages, especially in endorsing disease prevention (e.g. cancer, hiv/aids) and in general health promotion and wellness (e.g. family planning, reproductive health). the institute of medicine argues that health communication campaigns tend to organize their message for a diverse audience in one of three ways: by catering to the common denominator within the audience by creating one central message and then later making systematic alterations in order to better reach a certain audience segment, while retaining the same central message by creating distinctly different messages for different audience segments both the centers for disease control and prevention and scholars of health communication emphasize the importance of strategic planning throughout a campaign. this includes a variety of steps to ensure a well-developed message is being communicated: reviewing background information to define what the problem is and who is affected by