Strategic Health Communication: Widening the Lens, Sharpening the Focus

• In Event: Theory and Practice in Health Communication Interventions

Abstract

In response to the convention theme, “the health of the discipline”, the current study evaluates the state of strategic health communication research with a critical eye and with the goal of proposing ways of more fully harnessing the power of communication to promote health (widening the lens) while developing more focused communication strategies to this end (sharpening the focus). Using the knowledge-motivation-opportunity (KMO) framework as a useful heuristic for characterizing communication-based interventions, a preliminary sample of strategic health communication articles appearing in two journals (Health Communication and Journal of Health Communication) from 2000 to 2005 (N=65) were content analyzed. The preliminary results suggest that, due to its heavy reliance on social-psychological theories of behavior change, strategic health communication research focus predominately on knowledge as one determinant of behavior that can be influenced through strategic communication and largely ignores the potential role of communication in motivating individuals to change or promoting change in the environment in which they are embedded. The implications to the future ‘health” of the field are discussed.

Authors

• Itzhak Yanovitzky, Rutgers University

• Carey Curry, Rutgers University