Health communication is the study and practice focused on spreading promotional health information to improve the population’s health by influencing personal health choices. The efficiency of health communication is one of the most important points for the healthcare system because it determines the overall state of the healthcare system and the population’s health problems. Health communication is implemented through different methods and strategies, but in general, they are all connected by informing individuals about valuable health care facts.
Health communication helps establish positive behaviors that benefit individuals, such as healthy dieting, and prevent individuals from engaging in behaviors that negatively affect personal health, such as smoking. By insensibly introducing important health-related facts to individuals through visual representations, public health campaigns, and even online communication channels, health communication increases the population’s awareness of relevant issues. Currently, the main point of health communication is providing the population with helpful information regarding the spread of COVID-19 and explaining the importance of following safety measures (Finset et al., 2020). Previously health communication was focused on raising awareness about mental health issues, STDs, and negative outcomes of smoking.
In order to illustrate how health communications can be used to their full potential, the paper will use a story example. With the development of modern technologies, such as wearable smart devices, health communication and maintaining health behaviors could be simplified (Wright, 2020). For example, a middle-aged man who is slightly overweight and experiences trouble performing physical activities due to a passive lifestyle receives a smartwatch from his family as a birthday gift.
Through performing regular physical activities with instructions provided by the smart device based on the activity data of the audience with similar characteristics, he lost a significant amount of weight and developed an exercise habit. Through the monitoring feature of the device, the subject discovered that his sleep quality increased, and he experienced less stress than before. Therefore, health communication is important because of its influence and life-changing potential.
References
Finset, A., Bosworth, H., Butow, P., Gulbrandsen, P., Hulsman, R. L., Pieterse, A. H., Street, R., Tschoetschel, R., & van Weert, J. (2020). Effective health communication – a key factor in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Patient Education and Counseling, 103(5), 873–876. Web.
Wright, K. B. (2020). New technologies and health communication. In H. D. O’Hair & M. J. O’Hair (Eds.), The handbook of applied communication research (pp. 863–878). John Wiley & Sons, Inc.