Strategic Urban Health Communication

Strategic Urban Health Communication Charles C. Okigbo, editor People are bombarded with messages continuously and sorting through them constantly. In this milieu, critical ideas about health promotion and illness prevention are forced to compete with distracting, conflicting, even contradictory information. To get vital messages through, communication must be effective, targeted, artful—in a word, strategic. Strategic Urban Health Communication provides a road map for understanding strategy, enhancing strategic planning skills, and implementing strategic communication campaigns. Deftly written chapters link the art and science of strategic planning to world health goals such as reducing health inequities and eradicating diseases. Flexibility is at the heart of these cases, which span developed and developing countries, uses of traditional and digital media, and chronic and acute health challenges. And the contributors ground their dispatches in the larger context of health promotion, giving readers useful examples of thinking globally while working locally. Included in the coverage: Urbanization, population, and health myths: addressing common misconceptions. Integrating HIV/family planning programs: opportunities for strategic communication. The role of sports in strategic health promotion in low-income areas. The Internet as a sex education tool: a case study from Thailand. Advertising and childhood obesity in China. Health communication strategies for sustainable development in a globalized world. Balancing depth of understanding of audiences and methods of reaching them, Strategic Urban Health Communication is a forward-looking resource geared toward professionals and researchers in urban health, global health, and health communication.

Public health officials are constantly dispensing important health information to the masses through various media outlets. This comprehensive, practical new book teaches important skills and techniques to communicate public health issues effectively, including: health communication in emergency preparedness; the importance of social marketing techniques; public-private partnerships; building direct links between communication and health service delivery by way of pragmatic strategies; maximizing information reach through interdisciplinary planning; and much more.

Publisher description

Good communication is at the heart of strategies for effective health promotion and public health. At a time when lifestyle and preventable diseases are still on the rise, practitioners are in need of the skills to deliver effective health messages to the right audience, at the right time. Responding to this demand, Working on Health Communication provides a practical guide to the process of designing, implementing and evaluating campaigns. The book follows the campaign design process step-by-step. It covers every stage from selecting theoretical models and identifying the message and target audience, right through to running the campaign and evaluating its success. "Real-life examples" of actual campaigns are used throughout to show how theoretical ideas work in practice. Working on Health Communication is ideal for students and practitioners in public health, health promotion and other health-related areas who are working on health campaigns.

Health Communication: Strategies and Skills for a New Era provides a practical process model for developing a health communication intervention. The book also explores exposure to media and how it shapes our conceptions of health and illness. Using a life stages and environments approach, the book touches on the patient role and how we ‘hear’ information from health care providers as well as guidance on how to be a thoughtful consumer of health information.

The health communication strategies presented in this book are based on the understanding that there are many factors underpinning health. Starting from a framework of addressing health at an individual, group, and structural level, we need to realize the impact of globalization and social determinants on health. Health literacy and media literacy are necessary for health communicators and stakeholders to communicate effectively about/on health. Knowledge and skills in media technology, especially new media, new developments in the Internet and mobile devices are important. In addition, intercultural communication is essential to understand and collaborate with others. Health communication needs collaboration from all sectors in society. The health communication promoted in this book is based on a participatory model based within the multiplicity paradigm. Strategies suggested in this book are practical examples to encourage the reader to design his/her own strategies to serve a particular community. Before one can devise a strategy for health promotion and disease prevention, one needs to understand that a top-down communication approach cannot change nor sustain people's health behaviors. On the contrary, one needs to create an enabling environment or a context that supports an individual's decision to change their behavior. How to achieve sustainability in health or health for all is ultimately what this book is about. In nine chapters, the reader is introduced to the history and discourses of health communication and sustainable development; the first part provides the reader with an in-depth overview of the many health communication theories, set in the context of globalization and localization and assessed from both anthropological and sociological perspectives. In the second part of the book, chapters systematically explain communication for/about health for sustainable development in general, as well as regarding old and new traditional and digital media in particular. The concluding chapters present the principles and applications of health communication strategies for sustainability. Sustainability in health can only be achieved once health equality is a reality.

Now in its second edition, Health Communication: From Theory to Practice provides a comprehensive introduction to theory, intervention design, current issues, and special topics in health communication. The book also represents a hands-on guide to program development, implementation, and evaluation. This second edition further emphasizes the importance of a people-centered and participatory approach to health communication interventions, which takes into account key social determinants of health as well as the interconnection of various health and social fields. While maintaining a strong focus on the importance of behavioral, social, and organizational results as key outcomes of health communication interventions, this second edition also includes new or updated information, theoretical models, resources, and case studies on: Health equity Urban health New media Emergency and risk communication Strategic partnerships in health communication Policy communication and public advocacy Cultural competence Health literacy The evaluation of health communication interventions To access a companion website with instructor resources (PowerPoint presentations for all chapters, sample assignments, and other resources), please visit www.wiley.com/go/schiavo2e This title is also available as a mobile App from MedHand Mobile Libraries. Buy it now from iTunes, Google Play or the MedHand Store.