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Health Communication is a field of communication that is most commonly understood as the study and use of methods, products, programs, and interventions as a means to inform and influence individual and community decisions that promote healthy decisions. Effective and successful uses of health communication will utilize multifaceted approaches in order to best reach targeted audiences and deliver a message that will ultimately protect public health outcomes. Intended outcomes of health communication can include: increasing audience knowledge and awareness of a health issue; influencing behaviors and attitudes towards a health issue; demonstrating healthy practices; showing benefits of behavior changes to public health outcomes; advocating a position on a health issue or policy; increasing demand or support of health services; and arguing myths and misconceptions related to health.

Overview
The goal of effective health communication is to create higher levels of health literacy within a society, by using tools and methods of communication to promote healthy changes and lifestyle practices. Health communication is a recently blooming field of study, with official recognition as a subset of communication first coming from the International Communication Association in 1975, and formal recognition from the American Public Health Association in 1997 within the Public Health Education and Health Promotion division. 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.

Strategies and Methods
In order for messages of health communication to reach the selected audiences accurately and quickly, it is necessary for health communication professionals to assemble a collection of superior and audience appropriate information that target population segments, as well as continually synthesize knowledge from a myriad of other scholarly disciplines including marketing, psychology, and behavioral 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 in relation to addressing 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 as well as scholars of health communication emphasize the importance of strategic planning throughout a campaign, which includes a variety of steps to ensure a well-developed message is being advocated. These steps consist of:.  Reviewing background information to define what the problem is and who is affected by the problem   Setting communication objectives and proposing a plan to meet the wanted outcome   Analyze the target audience by determining interests, attitudes, behaviors, benefits, and barriers   Select channels and materials for communication in relation to what will most effectively reach audiences   Develop and pretest message concepts to determine understanding, acceptance, and reaction to the message  <li> Implement communication with selected audience and monitor exposures and reactions to the message </li> <li> Assess the outcome and evaluate the effectiveness and impact of the campaign, noting if changes need to be made </li>

Entertainment Advocacy
Using the entertainment industry as a platform for advocating health information and education has been a communication strategy that has become increasingly popular. The most utlized strategy is for health communication professionals to create partnerships with storyline creators so that public health information can be incorporated into within the plot of a television show. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has formed a strong partnership with Hollywood, Health, and Society, at the University of Southern California Norman Lear Center to continue to produce new storylines on television and in film studios that will help to promote public health information. Some of the resources provided with this partnership include comprehensive "tip sheets" to provide writers with easy to access and trustworthy information on health issues as well as meetings and panels to discuss new information and resources. Some of the most notable examples of this method of communication in recent years have been with the films Contagion and I Am Legend in understanding the spread of disease, NBC's series Parenthood in Asperger's Syndrome, and with the CW's series 90210 and spreading cancer awareness. Writers and storyline developers have an increased motivation to continue to incorporate public health information into their scripts with the creation of the Sentinal for Health Awards in 2000, which honors storylines that effectively promote health topics and audience awareness of public health issues. Surveys conducted by Porter Novelli in 2001 reported many interesting statistics on the effectiveness of this strategy, such as that over half of regular prime time and daytime drama viewers have reported that they have learned something about health promotion or disease prevention from a TV show. Amongst this data, minority groups are significantly represented with well over half of African American and Hispanic viewers stating that they had either taken some form of preventative action after hearing about a health issue on TV, or that a TV storyline helped them to provide vital health information to a friend or family member.

Media Advocacy
Media Advocacy encompasses the utilization of strategic mass media tools combined with widespread organization in order to advocate for healthy public policies or lifestyles. This can include the use of Text Messaging and Email to spread messages from person to person, as well as using Social Networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to promote health information to a wide ranging audience. As technologies expand, the platforms for health communication through media advocacy will undoubtedly expand as well.

New Technologies
Health communication has grown significantly along with new computer-based interactive technologies that allow consumers to search for and access detailed and specific information, control how the information is presented to them, and ask and respond to questions at their own discretion. These technologies include online health and medical website (e.g. WedMD) and online support groups and chatrooms (e.g. Association for Cancer Online Resources). One important aspect of this method of health communication is that it is extremely important in overcoming the barriers of low literacy, in that it creates a platform for personalized information easily accessed by people of all literacy and education levels and not overwhelmed with unexplained medical jargon.

Interpersonal Communication
Health communication relies on strong interpersonal communications in order to influence health decisions and behaviors. The most important of these relationships are the connection and interaction between an individual and their medical provider (e.g. Physician, Therapist, Pharmacist) and an individual's social support system, which can include family, friends, or a general community that positively influence the individual's decision to make healthy choices.

Applications
Health communication has become essential in promoting the general public health in a myriad of situations. One of health communication's most important applications has been throughout major Environmental events (e.g. hurricanes, flooding, tornados) and addressing the affected audience's questions and needs quickly and efficiently, keeping the protection of public health and the forefront of their message. Health communication professionals are constantly working to improve this type of risk communication in order to be prepared in the case of an emergency.

Another increasingly important application of health communication has been in reaching students in the college community. The National College Health Assessment has measured that 92.5% of college students reported being in "good, very good, or excellent health", however college students seem to battle serious problems with stress, depression, substance abuse, and a general lack of nutrition in comparison to other age groups and audiences. Professionals in health communication are actively striving for new ways to reach this at-risk audience in order to raise standards of public health in the college setting and to promote a healthier life style amongst students.

Challenges and Criticisms
In opposition to its success, health communication has faced many challenges. While these problems can be attributed to many factors, some of the most essential issues have to do with the gap between health literacy and health communication, flaws in communicating through the mass media, and a lack of trained professionals.

Literacy-Communication Gap
One of the most pertinent challenges health communication faces is the general gap that has formed between the population's health literacy and the use of health communication. While the goal is that health communication will effectively lead to health literacy, issues such as the use of unexplained medical jargon, ill-formed messages, and often a general educational gap have created a gap. Specifically, studies have been done amongst elderly populations in America to illustrate a common audience who is left at a disadvantage due to this issue. The older adults comprise an age group that generally suffers from the most chronic health conditions in comparison to other age groups, however studies have shown that even this group have difficulty understanding written health materials, understanding health care and policies, and generally do not comprehend medical jargon. Such shortfallings of health communcation may lead to increased hospitalizations, the inability to respond to and manage a disease or medical condition, and a generally declining health status.

Flaws in Mass Media
A major criticism of the use of mass media as a method of health communication is the unfortunate ability for false and misinformed messages to spread quickly through the mass media, before they have the chance to be disputed by professionals. This issue has the ability to generate unwarranted panic amongst those who receive the messages and have been a great source of trouble as technology continues to advance. An example of such an instance can be observed in the ongoing distrust of vaccinations, due to the publication of numerous messages that wrongly linked the childhood measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccination with the development and onset of Autism. The speed with which this message spread due to new social networking technologies caused many parents to distrust vaccinations and therefore forgo having their children receive the vaccine. Although this panic has been ferociously labeled as fictitious, many still harbor a lingering suspicion towards vaccinations and refuse them, which has caused an immediate public health concern.

Lack of Trained Professionals
As jobs and opportunities in health communication continue to increase, the field is met with an immediate challenge for a lack of trained professionals. As an academic study, there are only a handful of graduate programs that offer a focused study of health communication and therefore not enough professionals are produced in order to sufficiently fill the jobs that are being created. 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. However, in many instances trained professionals are not consulted before a message is produced and distributed to audiences. This is partially because of a lack of professionals to fill jobs, but also may be credited to the fact that other professionals tend to discredit the necessity of health communication professionals, and therefore bypass their help and release messages based on their own knowledge of communication.

Development
As of 2013, the Coalition for Health Communication has named twenty-four graduate programs with an intense focus in health communication and a goal to develop students as professionals in the field of health communication. Even with this dramatic increase in the number of degree programs, there is still an always growing demand for more academic opportunities that will expand the field of health communication professionals.