Importance of Health Communication Annotated Bibliography

¶ … Library- Health Literacy and Communication Skills

Wurz, A., Nurm, U. K., & Ekdahl, K. (2013).Enhancing the Role of Health Communication in the Prevention of Infectious Diseases. Journal of Health Communication: International Perspectives, 1566-1571.

In spite of awareness of health communication's significance in preventing disease, there was a clear knowledge gap in terms of nature and extent of its utilization in Europe for supporting infectious disease control and prevention. The ECDC (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control) decided to bridge this gap by commissioning a group of universities, in the year 2009, to perform a research project, Translating Health Communications, lasting 3 years. Project outcomes comprise two key areas: (a) preliminary information collection for providing insights into current application of health communication tasks for preventing communicable disease in the EEA (European Economic Area) and European Union and (b) knowledge synthesis evidenced by applying and using health communication techniques. This article provided a summary of key project outcomes, highlighting the numerous challenges still remaining and different spheres of opportunity, to raise health communication's profile in preventing contagious diseases in Europe.

Scarcella, C., Antonelli, L., Orizio, G., Rossmann, C., Ziegler, L., Meyer, L., . . .Gelatti, U. (2013). Crisis Communication in the Area of Risk Management: The CriCoRM Project. NCBI.

Crisis communication's significance as a key element in management of health crises was understood during the latest H1N1 pandemic. The goal of the project was, expressly, to acquire a better understanding of effective tools and dynamics of crisis communication and enable increased communication of public health organizations with the masses in times of health emergencies. Several activities are carried out by the Project: i) up-to-date review; ii) key stakeholder identification; iii) upgrades in current guidelines; iv) communicational analysis conducted by use of data gathered on stakeholder communicational activities and results taking into account the lessons acquired from analysis, of why public reactions vary during epidemics; v) Web 2.0 tool development as an online platform, feed service, as well as impact evaluation algorithm implementation; and vi) organizing training and exercises on these issues.

Oliveira, M. D. (2013).Multicultural Environments and Their Challenges to Crisis Communication. Journal of Business Communication, 2538-277.

Grounded theory research methodology was employed in qualitative interviews of 25 communication specialists in regard to influence of culture on crises, producing numerous findings. Firstly, public relations specialists faced challenges with defining multiculturalism, and usually linked cultural diversity to interaction with Latinos. Secondly, the individuals interviewed perceived cultural dissimilarities as only one element of diversity, stressing that religion, education, and age differences also influence corporate discourse. Thirdly, while culture was taken as a major crisis management component by professionals, they were not willing to deal with the challenges posed by multicultural crises; also they did not report frequent usage of culturally-adjusted strategies of crisis management. This study, through integration of crisis management and cultural competence frameworks, offers the basis for a comprehensive grasp of crises, in which experts and academicians can combine crisis approaches with cultural expectations of audiences. Training programs centered on boosting cultural competence levels can prepare communication professionals and organizations to face global market challenges.

Infanti, J., Sixsmith, J., Barry, M., Nunez-Cordoba, J., Oroviogoicoechea-Ortega, C., & Guillen-Grima, F. (2013).. A literature review on effective risk communication for the prevention and control of communicable diseases in. Stockholm: ECDC.

The existing literature pool on infectious-disease-related risk communication is explored in this review; it revolves around: (i) risk communication definitions and models; (ii) instruments, rules, and techniques for studying, making policies and applying risk communication; and (iii) inferences, major lessons and insights from applying risk communication theories to the real world. Appropriate risk communication has a crucial role to play in limiting mortality and morbidity resulting from contagious diseases, along with minimizing these diseases' damage to public health and country economy. Hence, the review attempted to discover the broad principles of successful risk communication, which can help prevent and control infectious diseases in Europe and specific good practices, which may be included in risk communication research, policies, guidance, and application in future. This review integrates the existing literature reservoir on infectious diseases' risk communication in a brief reference document that may be utilized for informing evidence-based methodology and plan development in the risk communication context. For performing the review, multiple databases were scrutinized for finding published academic works on the subject. Further, broad, as well as targeted searches on the web were carried out for finding relevant unpublished works on the subject (e.g. technical documents in the form of reports and conference presentations). Europe-related documents and those developed within the last ten years were prioritized in the search. After literature collection, main themes were determined and studied, and outcomes synthesized to create the report.

Heldman, A. B., Schindler, J., & Weaver, J. (n.d.). Social Media Engagement and Public Health Communication: Implications for Public Health Organizations Being Truly "Social." Public Health Reviews, 1-18.

While social media's aim is to engage audiences, it is also employed by public health providers and organizations as a mode to disseminate mass information by true multi-way interactions and conversations. The article describes and discusses use of social media for societal health communication. Different media engagement levels are studied and potential risks, difficulties, and advantages of truly adopting this social element for public health are considered. Some consequences of social channel engagement in this regard are dealt with, and further research and project recommendations are put forward.