This document discusses health communication. It defines health communication as informing, influencing, and motivating individuals and communities about important health issues based on scientific and ethical considerations. The document outlines several key points about health communication, including that it encompasses strategies to inform and influence knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding health; it can contribute to all aspects of disease prevention and health promotion; and poor communication negatively impacts health outcomes while improved communication can lead to better outcomes. The document also discusses elements, characteristics, appeals, theories of health communication.

1. HEALTH COMMUNICATION
OWONDO THOMAS

2. INTRODUCTION
• Communication is an essential part of human life; all meaningful social
interaction can be labelled ‘communication’. Without communication an
individual could never become a fully functioning human being.
• Reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing and creating images are all acts of
communication. There are also many more subtle communication activities that
may be conscious or unconscious. These include expression, gesture and ‘body
language’.
• Through communication people transfer facts, ideas, emotions, knowledge,
attitudes and skills to make informed decisions about their health.

3. Health communication
• Health communication is the art and technique of informing, influencing and
motivating individuals or larger audiences about important health issues based
on scientific and ethical considerations.
• It includes the study and use of communication strategies to inform and
influence individual and community decisions that enhance health.
• Health communication is recognised as a necessary part of efforts to improve
personal and public health. In other words, health communication encompasses
the study and use of communication strategies to inform and influence
individual and community knowledge, attitudes and practices (KAP) with
regard to health and healthcare.
• Health communication can contribute to all aspects of disease prevention and
health promotion.

4. ROLE OF HEALTH COMMUNICATION
• Poor communication has a strongly negative impact on outcomes of (a)
chronic diseases including diabetes and hypertension, (b) acute
illnesses, including pain control, morbidity following surgery, and length
of hospital stay, and (c) mental illnesses such as depression and
schizophrenia.
• Improvements in communication in healthcare settings, invariably lead
to better health outcomes. Furthermore, these changes may contribute
to greater equity in health and healthcare for racial, ethnic,
socioeconomic, educational and minority populations. Better
communication can lead to improvements in prevention, motivation for
behavior change, and adherence to treatment.

5. Elements of health communication
• In any type of communication, whether you are writing or speaking, trying to
persuade, inform or educate, there are several general objectives. These include being
understood, being accepted, and influencing an action such as a change of behavior.
• Health communication:
 initiates action
 makes needs known
 exchanges knowledge, attitudes and practices
 helps people understand issues and may change their health beliefs
 establishes and maintains relationships with health providers.

6. CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD ADVICE
• Epidemiologically correct
• Affordable
• Culturally acceptable
• Realistic
• Meets a felt need
• Easy to understand

7. APPEALS HEALTH MESSAGE
FRAMEWORK
• The way we organize the content of the message to convince people.
• Convincing people is not a simple task. For some people, its just as simple as
reading the vowels but for others, we need to scare them so that the desired
behavior is achieved.

8. TYPES OF APPEALS IN HEALTH
COMMUNICATION
A. The fear-arousal appeal.
• This type of message is conveyed to frighten and arouse people into action
by emphasizing the serious outcome from not taking action.
• Symbols such as dying people, coffins, gravestones or skulls may be used.
Fear-arousal appeals might be effective for a person with little or no
schooling.
• Evidence suggests that mild fear can arouse interest, create concern and lead
to behaviour change. However, creating too much fear is not appropriate.

10. TYPES OF APPEALS IN HEALTH
COMMUNICATION
B. Humour
• The message in this type of health communication is conveyed in a funny way such
as in a cartoon. Humour is a very good way of attracting interest and attention. It
can also serve as a useful method to lighten the tension when dealing with serious
subjects.
• Enjoyment and entertainment can result in highly effective recall and learning.
However, humour does not always lead to changes in beliefs and attitudes. What
one person finds funny another person may not. Humour should be used sensitively
so as not to offend others.

12. TYPES OF APPEALS IN HEALTH
COMMUNICATION
C. The logical/factual appeal.
• The message is conveyed to convince people by giving facts, figures and
information — for example, facts related to HIV/AIDS, its causes, route of
transmission and prevention methods. The logical/factual appeal carries
weight with a person of high educational level. Information on its own is
usually not enough to change behaviours and various appeals must be tried
to see what works.

14. TYPES OF APPEALS IN HEALTH
COMMUNICATION
D. The emotional appeal
• The message is transmitted by arousing emotions and feelings rather than
giving facts and figures. A poster or leaflet might use this approach by
showing smiling babies or wealthy families with a latrine and associating such
images to create a positive healthy impression. A less educated person will
often be more convinced by simple emotional appeals from people they
trust.

16. Health Communication Theories
• The model outlines six stages of change:
1. Pre-contemplation: No intention to change a behavior and potentially a lack of awareness there is a
need for change
2. Contemplation: Intention to make a change and a plan to do so soon
3. Preparation: Intention to take action in the immediate future, along with small steps to make the
behavior change
4. Action: An initial change in behavior, with the intention to continue with the change
5. Maintenance: Ongoing behavior change, with efforts to maintain the behavior
6. Termination: No desire to return to old behavior