This paper examines several new opportunities available to employ health communication inquiry to shape public health policies and practices. It maps out emerging programs that apply health communication scholarship to major public health interventions, and describes exciting new health communication research and outreach initiatives being introduced at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to enhance public health. While this portrayal of new NCI initiatives is not intended as a comprehensive review all opportunities available to health communication scholars, these new initiatives are reflective of some of the most remarkable prospects available for conducting important health communication research that can make a real difference in society. The NCI has designed and has begun implementing a comprehensive research and outreach strategy for introducing powerful new communication initiatives that promise to expand health communication knowledge and influence public health policies and practices. Responsibility for developing many of these new research and outreach initiatives rests with the new Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch (HCIRB), a part of NCI's Behavioral Research Program within the Division of Cancer Control and Populations Sciences that is dedicated to research about the influences of communication and informatics (computer-mediated communications) in cancer prevention and control. The introduction of the HCIRB coincides with and complements the NCI's identification of cancer communications as an area of extraordinary opportunity and institutional investment. This paper will illustrate the ways the new health communication research programs developed at NCI use health communication scholarship to shape public health policies and practices.
Learning Objectives: Session participants will (1) be able to identify the roles of health communication in health promotion and disease prevention efforts, (2) understand the diverse array of areas of theory and research comprising the field, and the relevance to health communication practice, and (3) become familiar with two major organizations for professionals interested in health communication.
Keywords: Health Communications, Research Agenda
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.