Talking About Health; Why Health Communication Matters

What is a “competent” health communicator?

119_1944a February 9, 2010

I received a ‘smileworthy’ email from my friend and colleague, Ed Maibach, on Monday. He had received word that one of the articles we co-authored had been named to the 50 most read articles in the Sage journal, the American Behavioral Scientist. In fact, the article is #5 on the list, as you can see if you visit http://abs.sagepub.com/reports/mfr1.dtl

The article’s title, “Competencies for the health communication specialist of the 21st century,” gives some idea why it has been one of the most read publications. The importance of this area both theoretically and in application has been widely recognized. This has contributed to a surge in adding health communication classes to undergraduate and graduate programs around the world. And in adding these programss, the debate continues about the focus of education and training.

As I looked back at the lessons learned to develop the article, I realize that many of these competencies are ones that we all need in order to successfully navigate the health information that might only be described as overwhelming in quantity and sometimes questionable in quality. One of the competencies that health communication specialists may choose as a focus focuses on gaining access to and using various electronic databases. As we’ve discussed on this site before, we all need to harness the skills to do this. One of the most important issues remains the ability to identify the sources of these messages in order to consider the validity of their claims.

The emphasis in the article reflects the importance of understanding the role of both media and interpersonal communication on our health habits. To continue the conversation from yesterday, we too often do not seek formal health care because our family or friends don’t support doing so. And we frequently substitute care from our support networks for formal health care. In fact, one of the roles that many faith-based organizations assume relates to providing support to members sruggling with illness or recovering from events that limit their well-being. This may include injuries on the job or the death of a loved one.

Perhaps one of the most surprising and least considered areas of health communication competence relates to impression management. This, too, flows from the knowledge generated from research and practice in interpersonal communication. I reflect on my own hesitation to reveal my failure to behave in ways that I know I should. I want others to form a positive impression of me and to like me. And it carries over into health realms. Besides wanting to present our own best image, we often–with little thought–help others project their own best image. So we may fail to ask our doctor about something we thought we would be talking about in our appointment because we are thinking that to do so might seem to imply that we are ‘criticizing’ our doctor.

Other competencies related to the 21st health communication specialist that we identified more than 15 years ago that all of us will benefit from include media literacy skills associated with understanding gatekeeping relating to content. As discussed in the former post, media stories about medical research likely appear far ahead of therapies to benefit our well-being related to the research findings. Understanding that media seek to give us novel content supports our ability to reflect on the gap between a story and its translation to our care.

So a competent health communicator likely begins with our intention…to understand, to reflect, and to participate in making decisions about our health in informed ways guided by our efforts and experiences. 119_1914

How fear appeals affect our motivation to practice healthy habits?

A winter walk

February 7, 2010

Fear is something most of us would rather not experience. Especially when it comes to our health. Yet, so much communication about health aims to make us fearful. Why is that?

Over time, research has shown that fear can be motivating. Because we don’t want to be fearful when it comes to our health, we may take action. That is, if we know how and believe the action will actually benefit our health.

The problem with too many fear appeals aimed at our health is that they do not fulfill the task of telling us what action to take, why the action will be effective, and how we can develop the skills or gain the resources to take the action.

Take the example of skin cancer. Most of us know that too much exposure to the sun can cause this deadly disease. We also know that some sun or UV exposure helps our body make vitamin D. So how much sun is too much sun? What if we like to stay healthy by being outdoors in the sun? What if our job requires us to be in the sun? An effective fear appeal communicates about these issues and doesn’t just make us fearful about being in the sun.

So if communication about health makes you feel fearful, look for the response recommended to reduce the threat. If the message doesn’t contain that information, it’s not a very good message. But at least you will know that what to look for to control the danger posed in the message and your fear as well. A response to the threat and ways you can carry it out.

Until next time, talk about health with the ones you love. It really might be a matter of…life and death.

What is race-based medicine?

Winter afternoon January 31, 2010

Medical research has shown that there are some patterns linked to racial group categorization in how some medicines work. Some medicine may metabolize faster or slower for some racial groups–in general. Lower does of some medicne may be required for treatment of members of some racial groups–in general. Similar patterns have been observed when comparing how men and women respond to some medications or therapies–in general.

What’s wrong with talking about race-based medicine?

First, stereotypes emerge from communicating about any group as if every member of the group behaves and responds in the same way to anything. Not everyone in the group will respond as suggested.

Second, it may seem to suggest that others who are not members of the racial group are less at risk for a condition. If we are a member of a different group, we may distance ourself from feeling at risk for the condition and socially distance ourselves from those who are at risk. This may happen because communicating the medical research that finds members of a particular group seem likely to respond in a particular way may seem to suggest that anyone not mentioned is not at risk. If, for example, efforts are made to commmunicate about a particular group’s response to treatment for heart disease becomes the focus of advertisements aimed at selling the treatment to members of the group, the unintended message may be, ‘They aren’t talking about me so I have less risk for heart disease.’ When communicating about therapies for men, for example, women may have long assumed that they were not a risk for heart disease, and that, of course is not true.

Third, communicating about race-based medicine may unintentionally contribute to the formation of stereotypes. As shorthand, classifying someone as a member of a group reduces our uncertainty about how we expect he or she will ‘be.’ As a result of such communication, we may, for example, form views that all members of a particular racial group are at risk for a particular health condition.

Finally, stereotypes of others and our own feelings of social distance from them often forms the foundation for stigma…our feelings of stigma about people and conditions, and our behavior toward those we consider to be members of a stigmatized group.

In sum, communicating about race-based medicine must be done with care to achieve valuable health outcomes and to limit harmful social outcomes.

Who is the source of that information about health on the internet?

119_1916 January 19, 2010

Surveys show that most of us go to the internet to search for health information and we do it fairly often. I was reminded of that as I had one of my infrequent flair-ups of pseudogout. It has been years since I’ve had the pain and swelling in my knees and this time it affected my fingers, my wrists, and even my back. And it didn’t go away after a few days. So I went online. And I found lots of information.

How we search for health information on the internet and what we do with the information once we have it is likely to predict whether the information is going to help or harm us. We can conclude that we are not at risk based on the information and be wrong. We can conclude that we are at risk based on the information and also be wrong. So a good place to start thinking about health information found on the internet is to consider the source of the information.

First, consider the motivation of the source. In the broadest sense, .com sites are commercial, while .org sites identify organizations, and .gov sites come from the government. We usually start with a search engine such as Google to seek answers to our questions. When I did, Google health came up as the first link to information. With so many people searching for health information, I guess it isn’t too surprising that the owners of a search engine like Google might want to get in on the act…

Second, consider the expertise associated with a site. Just ‘who’ is the author of the content you are reading and applying to your health? Is it a doctor or a nurse or a physical therapist? Is the doctor speaking on behalf of research or based on experience as a doctor? Is the information just presented, so the source is just the internet with no way of knowing if there is medical research to support the claims, particular researchers presenting the claims, or doctors supporting the research conclusions. I followed the Google health link and I searched for information about the expertise. I found some information at the bottom of a loooooooong page of information. But I couldn’t trace it back to any research. So I couldn’t find out much about where all the conclusions were coming from. Health communication researchers find this to be the case time and again. Not just on the internet. In newspapers, magazines, and broadcast news reports, the expert source on which information is being based is too seldom mentioned.

Third, what part of the information is the author of the content emphasizing, and what part is not being discussed? Is the author providing information for an organization that wants them to present a particular point of view? So, they might be describing the benefits of getting care at the organization whose site they represent but not tell you that it cost more than your insurance is likely to pay. Or, they might be telling the benefits related to one type of treatment for the drug company who has paid for the site you are reading, and they likely believe in those benefits, but there may be no discussion of the risks for the treatment. So, consider not only what content is included in the information but what content might be missing as well.

Doing so should help to make the information we find useful and help us to frame additional searches for more information to fill in the missing content…

HPV, HIV, HBV…and more

January 8, 2010

I am working on a project designed to understand how college students think about HPV. I have learned that the human papillomavirus — HPV — is confused with HIV by some male college students in this project and that some females confuse it with HBV — the hepatitis B virus…

The media has covered the HPV vaccine and, of course, we have all those direct-to-consumer ads appealing to the ‘I want to be one less’ angle. What isn’t clear in many of these stories and ads is that HPV is transmitted by skin-to-skin contact. That is why genital HPV cannot be guaranteed to be protected by use of a condom during sexual intercourse.

The HPV vaccine is, of course, not designed to prevent HIV. A female who has completed the series of HPV shots likely has about five years of protection from HPV. She is not protected from the human immunodeficiency virus — HIV. Males who mistake the two conditions, HPV and HIV, may wrongly believe that the HPV vaccine protects her and him from HIV and thus feel less inclined to use a condom to prevent HIV. That is a serious mistake.

The incidence of head and neck cancers over the past decade has been found to be related to oral HPV. College males who report engaging in open-mouthed kissing have been found to be more likely to test positive for oral HPV. But this is not the only path for transmitting oral HPV. As with genital HPV, the skin-to-skin contact provides a transmission route.

There is a vaccine for HBV. HBV affects the liver and is transmitted in ways that are similar to HIV, including blood and bodily fluids. It really can be a matter of life and death if we fail to keep straight the differences between these three and our actions to prevent them.

Direct-to-consumer advertising..

January 7, 2010

Only the U.S. and New Zealand have policies that allow advertisers to sell prescription drugs, durable medical goods, and even medical tests by appealing to consumers to be informed and ask their doctors to ‘prescribe’ specific drugs and therapies. On the one hand, these ads provide an opportunity for consumers to learn about different treatments. They also may reduce the sense that particular symptoms or conditions are unusual or embarrassing. For example, depression has long been a stigmatized condition. DTCA have undoubtedly played a large part in making us feel like the prevalence of depression is much greater than we might otherwise think. That might make us more willing to tell our doctor about our symptoms and seek help with them. On the other hand, DTCA have been faulted for providing a lot of content about the benefits of particular prescription drugs or treatments and providing very little information about possible harms.

If we find ourselves learning something new about health from DTCA, we should look for the content to give us a balanced review. Companies want to make profits. They won’t make profit by harming us, but they may make profit by persuading us that our life will be better if only we take a pill…

What’s new for HPV in 2010?

imgp0009 January 2, 2010

Near the end of 2009, the U.S. FDA approved the use of an HPV prevention vaccine for boys. It will be interesting to see how this will be sold in the marketplace. After taking such care to sell a vaccine as a strategy to reduce the incidence of cervical cancer with the slogan, “I want to be one less,” and assuming that even among a public with moderate to low levels of health and science literacy — most know that males do not have a cervix, what will the pitch be to convince parents to vaccinate their sons? It seems unlikely that any ad will focus on selling a vaccine to parents that implies that their sons could be the vectors of disease for girls, as that would turn attention toward sex which the advertisers so carefully avoided in focusing on cervical cancer.

Whatever the pitch, part of our conversation should focus on the vaccine’s efficacy. Clinical studies vary in estimating how many years of protection a vaccine affords, but it seems to be around three years. Some say it may be five years. In either case, there is no revaccination policy at present. As consumers, parents, patients…we need to advocate for a policy.

We need to ask ourselves if and when it is the right time to be vaccinated. We need to understand what HPV is and how it is transmitted. Since the virus is spread in skin to skin contact, a condom may not be enough protection from getting the virus if we come in contact with it during sex. We should talk about that fact with our daughters who may be trying to decide if the use of a condom is the best way to protect themselves from sexually transmitted infections and diseases. And we need to talk with our sons about the fact as well, and remind them that the HPV prevention vaccine does not protect from HIV.

We need to realize that for women, being vaccinated does not mean we do not need to have cervical cancer screenings. Will the advertisers include that in their future messages?