Health Behavior Impact Use of Media and Other Communication Technologies

Public Health Issues: Use of Media and Other Communication Technologies to Impact Health Behavior

Health communication via media telehealth is effective due to its maximum reach and accessibility. Half of the US adult population has smartphones, and 95% use them for looking for health-related information on the internet (The Community Guide, 2018). 72% of the entire US population uses the internet to find health-related information, and 62% use their phones, a convenient and handy option, to quickly access the same information online (The Community Guide, 2018). This paper aims to reflect on how effective health communication could be for the diabetic African American community for a public health intervention program.

For decreasing diabetes in African American communities, taking lessons from the evidence from The Community Guide (2018), mass media interventions could be more beneficial for community-based programs. The data shows that health communication campaigns using mass media are ‘recommended’ (indicated with a green circle). Also, diabetic management is more effectively conducted through mobile phone applications (again indicated by a green circle) for teaching self-management strategies in case of type-2 diabetes.

The type of health communication that could be used is ‘risk communication’ as fear-based theories propose that threat of risk involved in the diseases could instill a sense of fear in the affected ones (Wu et al., 2021). The fear-related anxiety or stress could motivate them to take precautions and take of their care, sometimes effective for self-management of the patients’ health conditions too. On a community basis, preventive behavior could be used to explore information’s effects during the intervention for African Americans.

Smartphones and telehealth services like text messaging could be effective methods in health communication interventions for African American community. These methods are witnessed working effectively, or at least the community’s willingness to get involved via these methods to gain health information (Anderson-Lewis et al., 2018). Gender-wise results have been valuable in understanding how the efficacy could be measured and the intensity with which gender-wise involvement could be gauged. Smartphones effectively disseminate information to females more interested in self-management tactics for chronic diseases (James et al., 2016). Behavioral health modifications have been observed for this underrepresented community where the likeliness of ownership of mobile phones as compared to Whites has been significantly high for this community, deeming it a highly favorable source for public health intervention for an educational campaign (Anderson-Lewis et al., 2018; James et al., 2016).

Research has suggested that type-2 diabetes is highly prevalent in African American community and that at home, it is not usually discussed how to prevent and self-manage the health condition (Ard et al., 2020). This poverty-stricken and less privileged section of the population remains discriminated against, under-diagnosed or under-treated when the health consequences aggravate, indicating more serious measures for the need for health education. Family history and education from early adolescence are mandatory because this community’s incidence rate is high. The preventive messages and risk communication of the illness could be used at the earliest so that aggravated conditions could be prevented.

The proposed program could be communicated keeping in mind the family history, higher incidence of the disease, the community not promoting discussions at home about diabetes management, higher use of smartphones, and more willingness of females to get involved in health interventions. A combination of fear-based tactics with risk communication and more motivation with greater education about the disease could benefit the entire community. Various combinations, such as text messages and social media, or Whatsapp or text messages, etc., could be tested to find the best communication intervention for ages or genders in the selected community.

References

Anderson-Lewis, C., Darville, G., Mercado, R. E., Howell, S., & Di Maggio, S. (2018). mHealth technology use and implications in historically underserved and minority populations in the united states: Systematic literature review. JMIR mHealth and uHealth, 6(6), e128. https://doi.org/10.2196/mhealth.8383