Health communication roleHealth communication is seen to have importance for almost every feature of health andwell-being, including health promotion, disease prevention and quality of life (Rimal &Lapinski 2009). Health communication has become an accepted tool for promoting publichealth. Its principles are often used today for various disease prevention and controlstrategies including advocacy for health issues, marketing health plans, and products,educating patients about medical care or treatment choices, and educating consumers abouthealthcare quality issues. At the same time, the availability of new technologies andcomputer-based media is expanding access to health information and raising questions aboutequality of access, the accuracy of the information, and effective use of these new tools (Schiavo2014). The many roles that health communication can play have been high- lighted by theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention. These roles of health communication include:Increase knowledge and awareness of a health issue, problem, or solution; Influenceperceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and social norms; Demonstrate or illustrate skills; Show thethe benefit of behavior change; Reinforce knowledge, attitudes, and behavior and advocate for ahealth issue or a population group (Schiavo 2014).Example and impact of how health communication is applied in public healthCommunication is an active process in which sources and receivers of informationcontinuously interchange their roles. One of the central beliefs of health communicationinterventions are the need to conduct the extensive formative evaluation, audience needsassessment and message pretesting is the direct offshoot of this understanding (Rimal &Lapinski 2009). Health communication operations use mass media and an organized set ofactivities to create precise outcomes or influence a large number of individuals. They areregularly the leading source of information about significant health issues. For this reason,health communication is often used as a method by those who wish to influence thethe behavior of health professionals and community members (Olmedo, Ogutu. & Mwinzi2014).Key features and characteristics of health communicationThe key features and characteristics of health communication are: Accuracy: The contentis valid and without errors of fact, interpretation, or judgment; Availability: The content isdelivered or placed where the audience can access it such as TV or radio; Consistency: Thecontent remains internally consistent over time and also is consistent with information fromother; Cultural Competence: The design, implementation, and evaluation process thataccounts for special issues for select population groups and also educational levels anddisability; Reliability: The source of the content is credible, and the content itself is kept upto date; Repetition: The delivery of/access to the content is continued or repeated over time,both to reinforce the impact with a given audience and to reach new generations (Omedo,Ogutu & Mwinzi 2014).ReferencesRimal, R. N & Lapinski, M. K. (2009). Why health communication is important in publichealth. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 87(4): 247. doi:10.2471/BLT.08.056713Omedo, M., Ogutu, M. & Mwinzi, P. (2014). The effect of health communicationcampaign on compliance with mass drug administration for schistosomiasis control inWestern Kenya—The score project. American journal of tropical medicine andhygiene, 91(5): 982–988. doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.14-0136Schiavo, R. (2014). Health communication from theory to practice (2nd ed.). San Francisco,CA. Jossey-Bass.
