BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES - Universitatea de Medicină şi Farmacie

contemporary social conditions. Demographic, social, and technological
trends that developed over the second half of the twentieth century
fostered conditions in which the value of good health information, and
thus the value of effective health communication, became increasingly
clear. Public health communication includes a continuum of activities that
span from research to interventions. Communication interventions are
effectively used in order to change risky behavior and to improve health
outcomes. For example, the National Institutes of Health of USA recently
(in partnership with health professional associations, voluntary health
agencies, and pharmaceutical companies) has conducted a communication
campaign that has contributed to more than a 60 percent reduction in the
death rate from stroke. Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) campaigns
conducted around the globe during the 1990s led to rapid and dramatic
(50–80%) reductions in death rates from SIDS.
More over communication for behavior change is also economically
efficient. Treatment of behavior-related diseases like cancer is expensive,
while the cost of behavior change interventions is low. For example each
Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY), say one England journal, gained via
a brief smoking cessation intervention costs £500 compared with £30,000-
£40,000 per QALY for treating patients with advanced cancer.
Many distinctions can be made between the various types of health
communication activities. The most important of them are the activities
that seek to influence the actions of individuals and small groups or the
actions of larger groups such as workplaces, communities, states, or
nations. The objectives of communication interventions at the larger levels
are focused on bringing about changes in policies. Example includes
improved safety a policy is the law prohibiting the driving under the
influence of alcohol. At the individual (or small group) level there are two
forms of activities. The first one is informed decision-making
interventions that seek to inform people for the purpose of enabling them
to make better health decisions. The second is persuasion-oriented
interventions seek to persuade people to change their behaviors or beliefs.
Situational factors determine which of these two approaches is most
appropriate.
Persuasion-oriented interventions are appropriate when there is clear
evidence that the behavior change is likely to benefit the individual, and
when society is able to reach consensus about the worthiness of the
behavior as a societal goal. Examples include promotion of teen substance-
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