Health Communication Campaign

Health Communication Campaign
Health Communication Campaign
Throughout this course, you will plan a health communication campaign. The first step in any planning process is identification of the problem. In this assignment, you will identify a public health problem or issue that you would like to address. You will focus on the problem and what you intend to accomplish with your program such as goals and objectives. You need not examine the content of the campaign at this point.
Using the Argosy University online library resources and the Internet, do the following:
Identify a public health problem that interests you.
You will use this health problem to develop a health communication campaign, addressing different aspects in each module.
For this assignment, write a short paper on developing a health communication campaign addressing this health problem.
Include the following:
Describe the health issue, giving details such as its origins and characteristics.
Give a brief history, including the background of the problem and the population groups it has most affected.
State and explain the goals and objectives of the campaign. Focus on the behavioral and health outcomes for a specific population.
Give examples and scholarly references in support of your statements.
Write a 3–5-page paper in Word format. Apply APA standards to citation of sources. Use the following file naming convention: Last name First Initial_M1_A3.doc. For example, if your name is John Smith, your document will be named SmithJ_M1_A3.doc.
By the due date assigned, deliver your assignment to the Submissions Area.
Assignment 3 Grading Criteria
Assignment Components Proficient Maximum Points Describe the health issue.Description of the health issue is specific and accurate. Description includes the origins and characteristics of the health issue32Provide a brief history.Description accurately states the background of the problem, and the population groups it has most affected.24State and explain the goals and objectives of the campaign.The goals and objectives of the health communication campaign are clear, providing a succinct explanation for each one. The behavioral and health outcomes for a specific population are accurately identified.
24Academic Writing Write in a clear, concise, and organized manner; demonstrate ethical scholarship in accurate representation and attribution of sources (i.e., APA); and display accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation.Wrote in a clear, concise, and organized manner; demonstrated ethical scholarship in appropriate and accurate representation and attribution of sources; and displayed accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation. Use of scholarly sources aligns with specified assignment requirements.20Total:100
“Purposive attempts to inform or influence behaviors in large audiences within a specified time period using an organized set of communication activities and featuring an array of mediated messages in multiple channels generally to produce noncommercial benefits to individuals and society,” according to a broad definition of communication campaigns.
[1]
Health communication campaigns have made significant contributions to global public health and are frequently seen as vital components of large-scale intervention efforts such as cancer and tobacco reduction [[2], [3], [4].
To begin, this article will provide a quick overview of the basic approach to health communication initiatives, as well as some of the underlying communication challenges and concerns.
As tangible examples, a few prominent health communication efforts done in the United States will be sketched.
The goal of this article is to establish a fundamental foundation for meaningful discourse among campaign researchers from various backgrounds, rather than to provide a complete survey of the huge campaign literature.
The case studies are not meant to be followed as examples, but rather chances to generate critical insights that may be useful in broader intervention contexts, as will become clear later.
2. A broad approach to public health initiatives
In the context of health education initiatives and/or social marketing activities, health communication campaigns are frequently mentioned.
Despite the fact that the three types of efforts are frequently interwoven, there are significant disparities between them.
Some educational interventions are conducted completely in hospital or institutional settings, without the use of mainstream media.
Social marketing initiatives, on the other hand, frequently employ marketing approaches that go beyond communication strategies, such as ways to maximize benefits while minimizing costs in order to encourage people to improve their health habits.
In health education and social marketing, health communication campaigns can play a key or supporting role.
However, communication campaign activities are not included in all health education and social marketing projects.
To put it another way, health education, social marketing, and health communication campaigns are sometimes interchangeable; however, they are not always, and the distinct concerns of communication campaigns cannot be obscured or overshadowed by broad principles of health education or social marketing.
Despite the fact that multiple research traditions have influenced the creation of scholarship on health communication campaigns, there is broad agreement on the major tasks that a campaign should accomplish [2,[5], [6], [7], [8]].
Identifying campaign objectives, establishing message strategies, spreading campaign messages through relevant media, and conducting systematic research to inform and assess campaign operations are just a few of them.
There are more complex frameworks that split down or expand these fundamental duties into smaller parts [see, for example, Ref. [1,9]].
However, for the time being, I’ll concentrate on only these four broad kinds of work.
2.1. Determining the campaign’s goals
The identification of a target audience (or multiple target groups) is often the first step in determining campaign objectives.
Health communication efforts rarely target the general public indiscriminately, despite their wide reach.
Campaigns are increasingly choosing to focus their efforts on specific segments that are likely to provide the best results.
Many factors go into choosing a target audience, but two questions appear to be applicable in most situations.
First and foremost, who is at risk?
Second, who are the people who are most likely to respond to proposed campaign activities?
Answers to questions like these are used to segment and select audiences, which are thought to improve campaign efficiency and effectiveness [1].
Behavior change is often, but not always, the ultimate goal of public health interventions.
As a result, campaign objectives frequently constitute a systematic understanding of how behavior change in the target group is expected to occur.
Relevant theory, previous intervention experience, and – perhaps most importantly – campaign-specific problem and audience studies are all valuable sources of information on this front.
Surveillance data from the national and/or regional levels, based on probability samples, are frequently useful in identifying key demographic and behavioral characteristics of the target population.
Additional research is frequently required to assess audiences’ current knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs, their readiness for change, their communication preferences and habits, as well as relevant social, political, and policy environments that may facilitate or hinder behavior change, in order to develop deep insights into the potential pathways of behavior change.
The findings from the research are combined to inform campaign objectives, which may focus on behavior change directly or on any of its antecedents in the campaign’s conceptual framework.
Campaign objectives that are well-chosen take into account time, resource, and environmental limits, and aim to maximize public health advantages within those constraints.