An Overview of Health Communication

Israel Oguche^*
*Correspondence: Israel Oguche, Department of Mass Media and Communication, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia, Email:

Editorial

The study and practise of transmitting promotional health information, such as through public health campaigns, health education, and between doctor and patient, is known as health communication. The goal of sharing health information is to improve health literacy and hence affect personal health decisions. Health communication is a distinct area of medicine that allows practitioners to employ communication tactics to inform and influence public decisions and actions in order to promote health [1].

Because effective health communication must be personalised to the audience and situation, health communication research aims to improve communication tactics to educate individuals on how to improve their health or avoid certain health hazards. Health communication is a sub-discipline of communication studies in academia [2].

Health communication can aim to do a variety of things, including:

• Raise audience awareness and knowledge of a health issue have an impact on people's behaviours and attitudes around a health issue

• Show you how to be healthy

• Advocate for a viewpoint on a health issue or policy by demonstrating the benefits of behavioural modifications to public health outcomes

• Raise the demand for health services or support for them

• Defend against health-related myths

• Improve the patient-provider relationship

• Improve the efficiency of health-care teams

The extent and implications of meaningful expressions and messages in situations or circumstances related to health and health care is the subject of health communication study. Medical science, public health, and communication studies are all considered interdisciplinary fields of study in health communication [3].

When the National Health Council convened a National Health Forum in 1961 to explore issues in health information communication, the phrase "health communications" was coined.

When Surgeon General Luther Terry hosted a conference on health communication in 1962 to study how various strategies can make health information available to the public, the phrase was reintroduced (US Department of Health Education and Welfare, 1963). In 1975, members of an interest group of the International Communication Association (ICA) coined the word. The development of effective health messages, the dissemination of health-related information through broadcast, print, and electronic media, and the significance of interpersonal interactions in health communities are all topics covered by health communication research. The concept of health and the emphasis on health are at the heart of every communication. The purpose of health communication research is to figure out how to communicate better and more effectively [4].

Critical health communication

Critical health communication refers to research that examines "how the systematic development and maintenance of disparities are linked to concerns of power through the meanings and enactments of health." It looks at the connections between culture, resources, and other social institutions. Its emphasis on qualitative and interpretive methodologies, as well as its attention to the ideological processes that support shared understandings of health, set it apart from mainstream health communication. Unlike much conventional health communication, most Critical Health Communication believes that simply disseminating a higher-quality or more prominent health message is insufficient to significantly affect health outcomes or eliminate health disparities. Since the first thorough overview of Critical Health Communication was released in 2008, the volume of critical health communication research has increased dramatically [5].

Conflict of Interest

None.

References

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