Public Health Issues: Use of Media and Other Communication Technologies to Impact Health Behavior
Health communication via media telehealth is effective due to its maximum reach and accessibility. Half of the US adult population has smartphones, and 95% use them for looking for health-related information on the internet (The Community Guide, 2018). 72% of the entire US population uses the internet to find health-related information, and 62% use their phones, a convenient and handy option, to quickly access the same information online (The Community Guide, 2018). This paper aims to reflect on how effective health communication could be for the diabetic African American community for a public health intervention program.
For decreasing diabetes in African American communities, taking lessons from the evidence from The Community Guide (2018), mass media interventions could be more beneficial for community-based programs. The data shows that health communication campaigns using mass media are recommended (indicated with a green circle). Also, diabetic management is more effectively conducted through mobile phone applications (again indicated by a green circle) for teaching self-management strategies in case of type-2 diabetes.
The type of health communication that could be used is risk communication as fear-based theories propose that threat of risk involved in the diseases could instill a sense of fear in the affected ones (Wu et al., 2021). The fear-related anxiety or stress could motivate them to take precautions and take of their care, sometimes effective for self-management of the patients health conditions too. On a community basis, preventive behavior could be used to explore informations...
…from early adolescence are mandatory because this communitys incidence rate is high. The preventive messages and risk communication of the illness could be used at the earliest so that aggravated conditions could be prevented.
The proposed program could be communicated keeping in mind the family history, higher incidence of the disease, the community not promoting discussions at home about diabetes management, higher use of smartphones, and more willingness of females to get involved in health interventions. A combination of fear-based tactics with risk communication and more motivation with greater education about the disease could benefit the entire community. Various combinations, such as text messages and social media, or Whatsapp or text messages, etc., could be tested to find the best communication intervention for ages or genders in the selected…
