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Risk and Health Communication - ALL LECTURE NOTES
Lecture 1: Introduction course and assignments:
Fincet, A., et al. (2020). Effective health communication – a key factor in fighting the
COVID-19 pandemic. Editorial Patient Education and Counseling
Effective health communication - a key factor in fighting the COVID-19
pandemic:
The approach of the article:
● 2020: COVID-19 pandemic rippled across the world.
Big issue all of a sudden.
● Drastic measures vs. How effective health communication can play a key role.
1. (Unprecedented) Mass information flow:
- In media.
- Need for ‘concise, accurate, and valid information’... ‘to the public all
over the world’… ‘in different contexts’.
- How to develop an effective health message?
How to reach different target groups?
How can we get the message across, how can we reach a different
audience?
2. Dealing with insecurity and fear:
When you work in this domain, you deal with insecurities and fear.
New to everyone. No one knows. Insecure situation.
● Insecurity and fear (panic): COVID-19 is ‘contagious and deadly’.
● ‘Invisible Enemy’.
● Feeling of loss of control over life.
● 4 important elements for communication:
1. Open and honest about what is (un)known: talk from facts
and recognize the temporality thereof. More transparent.
2. Consistent and specific information: clear, specific,
non-ambiguous "layman's language”.
, 2
3. Decision-making skills: ‘leadership’; reliable and honest;
acknowledge the (visible) experts.
4. Acknowledge emotions: through empathic information,
expressing concern, and acknowledging impact. Prominent
people who could help bring the message.
3. Promote behavioral change:
● Behavioral measures: individual and community level.
● Changing routines: convert it into conscious actions.
● Intention-behavior gap: ‘knowing’ is not the same as ‘doing’.
● This course: how to achieve this?
The article lists 4 important recommendations:
- ‘Mental model’: overview picture of how COVID-19 works.
- Interventions in the environment and through regulations; facilities.
- Appeal to collective action: ‘we are in this together’; leaders on all levels (role
models).
- Maintaining behavioral change: requires a change in self-regulation
(conscious planning in the beginning: action self-efficacy); preservation by
habit (maintenance self-efficacy).
Risk:
● The likelihood that a specific event occurs.
If you smoke now - what are the chances that you will get lung cancer in the
future?
The chance that something happens
● The severity thereof.
● Risk perception - different for different people.
Subjective! Difficult to estimate!
● We need to help the people feel the risk!
- Media - can be tricky! Have to be careful. Models → become the normal
standards → anorexia.
Health:
Multiple definitions:
WHO (World Health Organization) (1946):
‘It is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the
absence of disease or infirmity’ = refers to a “state”.
The condition of the body and also the state of mind.
More recently:
‘The capacity of people to adapt to, respond to, or control life’s challenges and
changes’
= refers to a “dynamic process”.
, 3
Objective: health at the organic level, determined by an expert. Can measure, can
be seen - x-ray. A doctor can determine.
Subjective: health on the individual level, determined by the individual, perceived
health.
A person can experience.
Chronic disease - but if it is not a problem for the person, it is not a problem.
Can also be vice versa.
Social: health on the social level, determined by the social environment, society.
Societal body standards.
Exam question:
A case:
Someone with a much too high Body Mass Index hears from his doctor that he is
obese. He feels bad because he can walk poorly. Fortunately, he is completely
accepted by his environment and they help him out where possible.
Is he healthy?
Objectively - not healthy (doctor says he is obese).
Subjectively - not healthy (he feels sad).
Socially - yes healthy (he is accepted by society).
Prevention levels:
Prevention:
Risk - and health communication is often about ‘prevention’.
Avoid it from happening.
Three prevention levels:
The communication message is different:
The level determines the message strategy / ‘social marketing’ approach.
Primary prevention:
● Preventing (the development of) illness.
● ‘Prevention is better than cure’.
● Condoms, vaccinations, wearing a seatbelt.
● You are healthy and want to stay healthy.
Secondary prevention:
● Early detection of illness.
● Detection behavior.
● Monograph (breast cancer), testing for covid, dentist.
● Can discover something.
, 4
● To find out.
Tertiary prevention:
● Limit severity/consequences of illness.
● For example: promoting adherence to therapeutic programs; developing
exercise programs for obese people.
● If the campaign says "go and have chemotherapy if you have cancer".
Most campaigns - are about primary and secondary prevention.
Because tertiary prevention is more focused on a specific group.
Condom use - primary prevention.
STD test - secondary prevention.
Social marketing:
When you use marketing techniques to sell other things than commercials.
● Risk and health communication have a lot in common with ‘marketing’.
● Social marketing:
- “Marketing behavior”.
- Target group specification.
- Connecting to behavior (determinants). The message is connected to
specific people.
- Message factors.
The four Ps:
Product: Actual product: the desired/recommended behavior.
Core product: profit from that behavior.
Price: Literally: the price of the product.
Figuratively: loss (of the behavior) compared to the promised benefits.
Place: ‘Action outlets’ (where the intervention takes place OR where the behavior
takes place).
Promotion: The most visible part of (social) marketing.
Persuasive communication strategies.
To persuade the people, to change behavior.
Develop effective messages.
Persuasive communication:
Motivating people to change their behaviors.
● Millions of people die every year from preventable causes of death (WHO,
2004).
Risk and Health Communication - ALL LECTURE NOTES
Lecture 1: Introduction course and assignments:
Fincet, A., et al. (2020). Effective health communication – a key factor in fighting the
COVID-19 pandemic. Editorial Patient Education and Counseling
Effective health communication - a key factor in fighting the COVID-19
pandemic:
The approach of the article:
● 2020: COVID-19 pandemic rippled across the world.
Big issue all of a sudden.
● Drastic measures vs. How effective health communication can play a key role.
1. (Unprecedented) Mass information flow:
- In media.
- Need for ‘concise, accurate, and valid information’... ‘to the public all
over the world’… ‘in different contexts’.
- How to develop an effective health message?
How to reach different target groups?
How can we get the message across, how can we reach a different
audience?
2. Dealing with insecurity and fear:
When you work in this domain, you deal with insecurities and fear.
New to everyone. No one knows. Insecure situation.
● Insecurity and fear (panic): COVID-19 is ‘contagious and deadly’.
● ‘Invisible Enemy’.
● Feeling of loss of control over life.
● 4 important elements for communication:
1. Open and honest about what is (un)known: talk from facts
and recognize the temporality thereof. More transparent.
2. Consistent and specific information: clear, specific,
non-ambiguous "layman's language”.
, 2
3. Decision-making skills: ‘leadership’; reliable and honest;
acknowledge the (visible) experts.
4. Acknowledge emotions: through empathic information,
expressing concern, and acknowledging impact. Prominent
people who could help bring the message.
3. Promote behavioral change:
● Behavioral measures: individual and community level.
● Changing routines: convert it into conscious actions.
● Intention-behavior gap: ‘knowing’ is not the same as ‘doing’.
● This course: how to achieve this?
The article lists 4 important recommendations:
- ‘Mental model’: overview picture of how COVID-19 works.
- Interventions in the environment and through regulations; facilities.
- Appeal to collective action: ‘we are in this together’; leaders on all levels (role
models).
- Maintaining behavioral change: requires a change in self-regulation
(conscious planning in the beginning: action self-efficacy); preservation by
habit (maintenance self-efficacy).
Risk:
● The likelihood that a specific event occurs.
If you smoke now - what are the chances that you will get lung cancer in the
future?
The chance that something happens
● The severity thereof.
● Risk perception - different for different people.
Subjective! Difficult to estimate!
● We need to help the people feel the risk!
- Media - can be tricky! Have to be careful. Models → become the normal
standards → anorexia.
Health:
Multiple definitions:
WHO (World Health Organization) (1946):
‘It is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the
absence of disease or infirmity’ = refers to a “state”.
The condition of the body and also the state of mind.
More recently:
‘The capacity of people to adapt to, respond to, or control life’s challenges and
changes’
= refers to a “dynamic process”.
, 3
Objective: health at the organic level, determined by an expert. Can measure, can
be seen - x-ray. A doctor can determine.
Subjective: health on the individual level, determined by the individual, perceived
health.
A person can experience.
Chronic disease - but if it is not a problem for the person, it is not a problem.
Can also be vice versa.
Social: health on the social level, determined by the social environment, society.
Societal body standards.
Exam question:
A case:
Someone with a much too high Body Mass Index hears from his doctor that he is
obese. He feels bad because he can walk poorly. Fortunately, he is completely
accepted by his environment and they help him out where possible.
Is he healthy?
Objectively - not healthy (doctor says he is obese).
Subjectively - not healthy (he feels sad).
Socially - yes healthy (he is accepted by society).
Prevention levels:
Prevention:
Risk - and health communication is often about ‘prevention’.
Avoid it from happening.
Three prevention levels:
The communication message is different:
The level determines the message strategy / ‘social marketing’ approach.
Primary prevention:
● Preventing (the development of) illness.
● ‘Prevention is better than cure’.
● Condoms, vaccinations, wearing a seatbelt.
● You are healthy and want to stay healthy.
Secondary prevention:
● Early detection of illness.
● Detection behavior.
● Monograph (breast cancer), testing for covid, dentist.
● Can discover something.
, 4
● To find out.
Tertiary prevention:
● Limit severity/consequences of illness.
● For example: promoting adherence to therapeutic programs; developing
exercise programs for obese people.
● If the campaign says "go and have chemotherapy if you have cancer".
Most campaigns - are about primary and secondary prevention.
Because tertiary prevention is more focused on a specific group.
Condom use - primary prevention.
STD test - secondary prevention.
Social marketing:
When you use marketing techniques to sell other things than commercials.
● Risk and health communication have a lot in common with ‘marketing’.
● Social marketing:
- “Marketing behavior”.
- Target group specification.
- Connecting to behavior (determinants). The message is connected to
specific people.
- Message factors.
The four Ps:
Product: Actual product: the desired/recommended behavior.
Core product: profit from that behavior.
Price: Literally: the price of the product.
Figuratively: loss (of the behavior) compared to the promised benefits.
Place: ‘Action outlets’ (where the intervention takes place OR where the behavior
takes place).
Promotion: The most visible part of (social) marketing.
Persuasive communication strategies.
To persuade the people, to change behavior.
Develop effective messages.
Persuasive communication:
Motivating people to change their behaviors.
● Millions of people die every year from preventable causes of death (WHO,
2004).
