Health Comm Central

In Part Two of my conversation with Sandra Crouse Quinn, we talk about COVID and trust, plus future challenges when it comes to increasing health equity. Dr. Quinn and her colleague Stephen Thomas were two of the first researchers to shine a light on the impact the Tuskegee syphilis experiment had on trust in the African-American community — and by extension, on other communities of color. Togethe...

For most people in public health today, the role that trust — or more accurately, distrust — often plays in racial health disparities may seem obvious. When both lived experience and research confirm that implicit and intentional bias in the system have resulted in real harm, it’s a rational response to be wary or distrustful. However, for years after the Tuskegee experiment, public health was act...

While effective teachers and professors consider adult learning theory one of the go-to frameworks for curriculum development, you may not realize how useful it can be, and how well-researched it is, in the world of health promotion and health communication. This episode takes a look at six of the basic principles of adult learning theory that every health communicator needs to consider when devel...

So often when we consider health disparities in a population, we focus on what is wrong or deficient — the barriers to good health. But what if instead we gathered wisdom from people and communities who are exceptions to the rule, then tried to replicate the conditions that enable them to be successful? This is what the “positive deviance” framework does: it reframes our thinking to consider that...

Wrapping up our series on media, today we look at four more media relations essentials that can help you earn media coverage: Op-eds, letters to the editor; becoming a go-to resource for journalists; and convening an editorial board meeting. Along with the earlier parts of our series on media, these are tools you probably didn’t learn about in your MPH program or even a general health communicatio...

Every day, television and radio shows across the country have thousands of interview slots to fill during live programming and they are hungry for people who can fill those slots. If you’re not taking advantage of these guest interviews as a chance to get your message out, you’re missing an excellent source of earned media coverage. In the third episode of our series on what you need to know about...

This is the second in our short series unlocking the secrets of media relations and earning media coverage. Today’s episode is all about the timeless power of the press release. Is it old school? Absolutely. Is it still effective? Without a doubt. . If you are not regularly creating and sending out press releases, you may be missing a huge opportunity to capture earned media. We’ll unpack the art...

The value of the PESO for your health communication work may be far greater than you think… if you’re talking about the PESO Model created by public relations professional by Gini Dietrich. In this episode, we unpack the four types of media in the acronym PESO—paid,  earned, shared, and owned—and the role each one plays in an effective communication strategy. We’ll also talk about why the rational...

What can we learn from an old guy in a toga about communication? Centuries worth of what makes an effective message, it turns out — if that old guy is Aristotle. This episode unpacks the three appeals that the Greek philosopher Aristotle identified in 330 BCE as the three fundamental elements of persuasive communication: ethos, pathos, and logos – AKA credibility, emotion, and reasoning. We look a...

Key informant interviews (often called KIIs and also known as in-depth interviews or IDIs) can provide insights about your audiences, your messages, and your campaigns. KIIs can be one of the easiest and lowest-cost types of data-gathering available. Although working with an experienced researcher and facilitator is best if it’s possible, research interviews can truly be done by any agency or non-...

If the behavior you are trying to promote involves any social influences (and most do—to some extent!) you may wonder whether a “social norms” campaign or intervention is the right approach. In this episode, we talk about the difference between social norms as researchers identify them and other constructs like customs, habits, or laws, plus how norms are different than closely related concepts li...

By now, almost everyone has heard of ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence apps. But if you’re a health communicator and you are not actively using them, you’re missing out. In this episode, we talk about five ways to use ChatGPT right now, along with some additional things to aspire to. Plus, we discuss key concerns about AI and how to use it ethically to make your work more efficient and eff...

Research has shown that behavioral intention is a fairly good predictor of behavior… but what about when it’s not? For many people with executive function impairments — which includes not only many individuals who are neurodivergent, but also people with mood disorders, mental illness, physical illness, cognitive impairment, and even people under stress — following through on behavioral intention...

The Theory of Reasoned Action/Theory of Planned Behavior (TRA/TPB) is one of the classics of behavioral theory… but what does it offer that some of the other “classics” we’ve explored — like Social Cognitive Theory and the Health Belief Model — do not? In this episode, we look at the constructs of the TPB, some of its pros and cons, and discuss when you might want to consider it. Resources: Diagra...

Theories and frameworks are an essential part of planning and evaluating campaigns and interventions. (If you’re not sure why, stop right now and go back to Episode 2, where we lay out the many reasons that “nothing is more practical than a good theory.”) But there are a bewildering number of options! How do you know what’s available and appropriate, and how do you choose? In this episode we look...

One of the first frameworks to put the individual in the context of all the factors that influence behavior — including policies, systems, and environments — was the Social Ecological Model, sometimes also referred to as the Socioecological Model. Its nested design is a great way to think about the big picture and to conceptualize multi-level campaigns and interventions that can work simultaneousl...

Almost everywhere you turn in health communication—really, in any kind of communication — you’ll find Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) at the root of some pretty fundamental truths about how human behavior is influenced by others and by the world around us. While you may never have worked on a campaign or intervention that was specifically designed with the theory itself in mind, you’ve probably inco...

Getting a new idea, policy, or behavior to take hold and be widely adopted is a complex and often slow process. Even great ideas often fail to catch on. But a better understanding of the process people follow in considering and adopting new ideas can give you an edge, making it more likely the idea will spread across individuals or communities. And nothing explains that process better than the Dif...

In the last (really!) of this brief series on social marketing, we look at the strategic approach that is most commonly used in social marketing: Making a behavior seem easier, more fun, or more popular than whatever competing behavior people are currently engaged in. Most of the time, when a campaign doesn’t live up to expectations, it’s because it has not effectively used this approach to motiva...

Audience research is absolutely essential to the social marketing process. Unless you truly know the audience’s values and needs, you cannot craft a strategy to exchange a new healthier behavior for a competing behavior. In this episode, we discuss some of the obstacles to audience research and how you can do audience research on a shoestring. We also discuss how the focus on the audience makes so...

A premise of social marketing is “every behavior is a transaction.”  It’s actually an idea that is well understood in sociology, psychology, and communication, but to the uninitiated, it can sound pretty harsh.  But transactional behaviors are not what you think!  In social marketing, thinking of a behavior as a transaction really just means that a reciprocal or two-way exchange is taking place. ...

In this second episode of our brief series on social marketing, we look at the theory that underpins it: Exchange Theory. Understanding how to apply Exchange Theory will help you choose the right message for an audience based on what you know about their basic needs and values. (Bonus: It can even work in your personal life too, when you’d like that person in your household or workplace to change...

The concept of Product and Price from the Four Ps of Marketing can be confusing when you’re new to social marketing.  What’s your product if you are just trying to persuade someone to change their behavior?  And what is the price if no money changes hands?  This episode is the first in a brief series on social marketing, breaking down these two critical concepts and offering some suggestions for h...

If you’re serious about health equity, you have to get serious about plain language.  Today’s episode was inspired by a great new plain language resource just released by the Public Health Communication Collaborative.  It covers many of the basics you need to know – and is a great model itself for plain language principles.  But in this episode, we talk about how to avoid some of the biggest mista...

In a world of competing messages and disinformation, wouldn’t it be great if you could protect your audience against the influence of conflicting or unhealthy information they may encounter – almost the way a vaccination protects your body from diseases it encounters?  The good news is, you can: Inoculation Theory supports the idea that being upfront and honest about the downsides or potential obj...