Experts and activists from the health communication field succeeded to innovate and professionalize the practice of health campaigning. Professor Dr. Angela Schorr (Siegen/Germany) edited a textbook with the goal to draw attention to these developments and to familiarize the reader with the ways of thinking that characterize the realities of health campaigning.
Schorr and colleagues stay determined to shift the focus away from the health care provider or the health expert toward the consumer of health services, and in doing so, concentrating their research efforts on specific audiences and target groups (e.g. senior citizens, women, specific professions et c.) and addressing their needs. Similarly, the experts from the U.S. Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion defined: "Health communication encompasses the study and use of of communication strategies to inform and influence individual and community decisions that enhance health. It links the domains of communication and health and is increasingly recognized as a necessary element of efforts to improve personal and public health."
Angela Schorr emphasizes: "Today´s health campaigns are health communication campaigns. But the field´s rapid growth also left marks on the structure of the scientific community and on health communication´s research agenda. Especially the neglect of theory-driven research can endanger the achievements of the past. In the long run, it might even endanger people ... So-called effective health communication might disseminate messages intended to promote health but backfire causing undesirable effects of sensitizing the public, stigmatizing and/or promoting their risk-taking behavior ..."
Campaigning for Health – Case Studies in Health Communication & Health Promotion
Schorr, Angela (Ed.)
