Health Communication: Beyond Recognition to Impact

We have come a long way since this journal was launched over 15 years ago. While many debated what health communication may be—a field, a discipline, an area of interest—we began publication in sync with a number of academic programs of health communication in their infancy. The early academics focused on different aspects of the field—interpersonal communication, campaigns, mass communication, new media, and other areas. Governmental agencies and others were wary of the potential, as it was only in 2000 that the public health goals of the nation—Healthy People 2010—included a role for health communication.

We witnessed unparalleled growth in the need for communicating for better public health—HIV/AIDS, tobacco, and new areas with SARS, mad cow crises, and challenges to longstanding success of vaccination. The Institute of Medicine, other mainstream journals, and the popular press began to present the linkage and hope with communication and health. Still the discipline grew, with programs increasing and graduates entering the field with an ethical, evidence-based approach to communicating health as a discipline. Other areas began to latch on to health communication, and new media, health literacy, and social marketing began to garner momentum. The Journal of Health Communication now receives more than 300 submissions a year and is ranked fifth of 55 journals by 5-year impact factor in communication.

Numerous supplements guest edited by prestigious scholars have highlighted specific areas of success—communication strategies of UNAIDS, closing the gap in polio communication (USAID), health literacy advances (AHRQ), cancer communication (NCI), crisis communication with anthrax (CDC), evidence that behavior change communication works.

Furthermore, review articles such as the recent one by Wakefield, Loken, and Hornik in Lancet (October 9, 2010) present meta-analysis that public health communication campaigns work best when they are planned and integrated into comprehensive public health initiatives.

The World Health Organization also credits public health communication campaigns with success in reducing tobacco and alcohol use, increased uptake of breastfeeding, and improved nutrition and exercise (World Health Organization, 2009). This also has been recognized in planning as the United Nations proclaims that integrated communication initiatives can facilitate better health promotion, prevention, and care at the individual, community, family, and system level (United Nations Economic and Social Council, 2010).

Other evidence builds from long-term interventions in Finland, comprehensive community interventions with strong communication components, which have resulted in 80% decreases in cardiovascular deaths in working age populations (Puska, 2010). And finally, the call for “stronger national public health institutes for global health” presented by Thomas Frieden and Jeffrey Koplan (2010) identifies health communication as a “core and potential function of a National Public Health Institute.”

So, it only makes sense that the new United States Department of Health and Human Services Healthy People 2020, which “provides science-based, 10-year national objectives for improving the health of all Americans,” also includes a section on health communication. What is especially welcomed is that the three page framework (http://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/Consortium/HP2020Framework.pdf) shows the approach to addressing the challenges of the United States.

For readers who have followed the initiative (including this editor who has participated in Healthy People 2010 and Health People 2020) “the Healthy People initiative is grounded in the principle that setting national objectives and monitoring progress can motivate action.”

Readers of this journal should be enthused by the three areas highlighted in the framework:

1. The Importance of an Ecological and Determinants Approach to Health Promotion and Disease Prevention

2. The Role of Health Information Technology and Health Communication

3. Addressing “All Hazards” Preparedness as a Public Health Issue.

The fact that health communication and health information technology are highlighted among the top three areas in the framework document should be a hallmark of the opportunity to attain the Healthy People 2020 goals. We all must assist and work collaboratively to attain the goal to “use health communication strategies and health information technology (IT) to improve population health outcomes and health care quality, and to achieve health equity.”

While we will revisit the Healthy People 2020 goals and the progress during this decade at county, state, and federal levels, we should also realize that the designers see this as something dynamic. In this decade, the speed, scope, and scale of adoption of health information/communication technologies (or Interactive Health Communication [IHC]—see the November 2010 editorial in this journal) will only increase. Social media and emerging technologies will create new pathways for expert, colleague, peer, and lay health information. Monitoring and assessing the impact of these new media, including mobile health, on public health and individual health choices will be an issue to follow.

Equally challenging will be the ability for learned intermediaries (read expert knowledge) between the patient/consumer to adapt to the changes in quality and efficacy with multiple sources promulgating health information of variable value.

This unprecedented growth and “ubiquitous health” is dynamically changing the way people receive, process, understand, evaluate, and act upon health information. As this journal represents a multi/pluri-disciplinary, global approach, new experiments, models, theories, and systems will be developed and tested.

It is our hope that this decade will advance a new ethical, evidence-based approach that continues to enhance the health and well being of people globally. This is an exciting new era, with the Journal of Health Communication leading the way. We now have 10 issues planned each year, starting with the current volume year (Volume 16, 2011). Additionally, while our impact is based on traditional methods, we will continue to enhance our reach and impact upon health decisions with a discussion and networking page (http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Journal-Health-Communication-3734130). Please join us!

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Scott C. Ratzan

Scott C. Ratzan, MD, MPA, is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Health Communication: International Perspectives. He also is Vice President, Global Health, for Johnson & Johnson.