I am taking a Health Communication course this semester at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. Our first mini-assignment is to describe health communication and explain how we think it applies to our areas of interest. Since it is ungraded and the topic may be of interest to some of you (particularly those who wonder what the heck I am even studying these days), I thought I'd share it here. If the topic does interest you and you want to read more, you should check out my professor Dr. Ratzan's speech "Quality Communication: The Path to Ideal Health" (if you have a university library access to articles; otherwise search his name for other works). I particularly like his self-description: "My service is not with a scalpel, but the modern day therapeutic intervention: ethical science-based communication." On with the mini-assignment:
Health Communication
In recent years, great effort has been exerted in all sectors to find innovative solutions to poverty. Whether it is increased banking access via mobile money, improved agricultural techniques, HIV/AIDS prevention programs, or building new latrines, these investments and strategies have great potential for alleviating heavy burdens on communities throughout the world. Many of these methods receive “fad” status among development practitioners, and it seems every year or two a different sector garners renewed attention and funding. Yet even the most proven technology or strategy is meaningless without a strong communication strategy that focuses on behavior change.
To understand how behavior change happens, it is crucial to look at the public health sector and in particular at health communication. The prevention of disease and the improvement of health and well-being require various forms of communication; these forms can be defined in various ways, but should include traditional and social marketing, public relations, advocacy, education, negotiation, and more. Defining health communication and its partner in many published articles, health literacy, in a simple phrase can be difficult, but that should not turn development practitioners away from studying communication. On the contrary, the complexity of communicating ideas should be embraced. This complexity means that there are no “silver bullets” in health or any other field; practitioners must make concerted efforts through different methods in order to affect change. Everyone working in public health and development should remember that behavior change is a slow yet rewarding process. Only a change of behavior that is natural for the beneficiary will prove sustainable after the practitioner’s intervention ends.
How do the various forms of communication work in concert to achieve behavior change? The answer is, as always, “it depends;” each specific situation requires a diagnostic understanding of the problem at hand and a holistic approach to communicating the relevant technologies and strategies for overcoming the problem. This is why I believe understanding the interplay of communication strategies will be so important in my career. As someone interested in community and economic development, I think the very term “communication” is integral to development, because it implies a participatory action that involves both participants as equal. We can attempt to encourage, sway, intimidate, bribe, or force our “solutions” on people in developing countries (or anywhere for that matter) as much as we like, but these efforts will be ineffective and potentially detrimental. Instead, conversation, listening, understanding, negotiation, and social capital are all far more important than believing we have the “right” answer. Through cooperation and communication we can achieve lasting change in the public health sphere and beyond.
and because I can't reference Led Zeppelin without a video...
