Course Description:

This course covers general steps to planning a health communication intervention, as well as how to apply health communication theory when promoting behavior change.  Social marketing principles are introduced, in addition to steps to reduce the literacy burden that often restricts health communication.

This course includes four modules:

Module 1: An Introduction to Health Communication
This module defines health communication and the 4 main components of health communication, including: source, message, channel, and receiver.  Diagrams demonstrate how these components interact.  Using breastfeeding as an example, the module reviews how you can use health communication components to promote healthy behaviors.  The P-Process is introduced, and the ‘Development & Testing’ portion of the process is further demonstrated through the use of tailoring and framing to develop a clear message.  This module also discusses several challenges that may arise when working in the area of health communication.

Module 2: Health Communication and Theory
This module explains why theory is important in terms of planning a health communication campaign. Then it describes in depth three popular behavioral theories and how they can be applied to planning a health communication campaign geared at promoting breastfeeding. The three theories discussed include the Theory of Planned Behavior, the Social Learning Theory, and the Transtheoretical Model.

Module 3: Health Literacy
This module defines health literacy and goes over the various tasks that involve being health literate.  These tasks range from being able to fill out a medical form to being able to calculate dosages for medicine.  The populations that are especially vulnerable to low health literacy rates are discussed, as well as the outcomes of having low health literacy.  Next, many approaches to improving low health literacy are examined, such as following the Healthy People 2020 objectives and speaking in plain language.  The SAM instrument is also introduced.  Lastly, low health literacy is shown to impact decisions to breastfeed.

Module 4: A Brief Intro to Social Marketing
This module begins by defining social marketing and introducing the 4 P’s. A breastfeeding commercial is shown, and the audience is asked to come up with potential descriptions of the 4 P’s for that campaign. Then the differences between social marketing and commercial marketing are discussed. The four types of behavior change and the three various approaches to social marketing are described and demonstrated through breastfeeding examples.

Each module includes video content, review questions, and additional activities.