Why: The Importance of Communicating Health

As a health professional, you are probably focussed on helping improve the lives of the clients that you see face-to-face. What if you could help more people?

This page will get you thinking about sharing with larger audiences.

Key Tips

  • GET OUT THERE - The mass followings of social media influencers and celebrities can be daunting to compete with, but it doesn't mean it is a lost cause to get your voice heard. It will never be heard if you're not putting it out there at all, so plan your approach and simply get started.


  • EXPERTISE - Ensure your qualification and expert status is obvious and easy to find, such as on websites, social media profiles and association affiliations.


  • UNDERSTAND YOUR AUDIENCE - Knowing your audience is key to understanding who or what is influencing their health behaviours and help you in your communication strategy. See our section on audiences for further information about understanding and segmenting your audience.


  • BE PATIENT - An audience is not built overnight, so have the long game in mind. Be prepared to take more than a year to gather an audience.

Why is it important for health professionals?

If you are a health professional in a client-facing role, you are probably used to dealing with individual clients and supporting their health as a part of either one-off or ongoing consultations.

Our research revealed that people feel that they are not getting what they need when it comes to health advice from health professionals and government bodies. They feel that the advice they receive is too general and doesn't have enough detail to implement.

Technology has changed the way people consume information and user-generated information has been drowning out the voice of traditional experts.


People often go searching for health information themselves and are regularly drawn to the loudest voices and rely on the most accessible information. This information often comes from self-proclaimed ‘experts’ who have no actual expertise in the information they spread. The loudest voices are often those of social media influencers, celebrities and commercial companies.

People in our studies have also said that they would like nutrition guidance but don't know who to trust or from where to get their nutrition information.

With anyone now able to communicate information on any subject, there is the potential for spreading misinformation that is not backed up by evidence or science.


While it is tempting for appropriately qualified and registered health professionals who are experts to simply dismiss these opinions and people, you risk being sidelined from important conversations and may initiate people turning to other, non-experts for their information.

As with many problems, this is also an opportunity. Health professionals have the chance to fill the ‘expert void’ in the channels that people are turning to for information. Well planned and executed health communication allows you to extend the impact that you have in improving the health of a wider audience.


Health professionals can learn health marketing techniques and how to leverage communication channels, such as social media, in a way that will improve an audience's ability to adopt healthy behaviours.

Similar to one-on-one consultations, health communication to wider audiences requires consideration of a person's broader 'system' of influences (ranging from family, to culture, to available services) and it can be done using the right tools from social marketing.


Understanding an audience's personal system gives you the potential to amplify your impact as a health professional. See more on this on the Understanding Your Audience page.


This Communicating Health Toolkit has been designed with this personal system in mind. The information you will find in sections of this website will help you understand your audience, plan your communication strategy and create communications that can better impact this broader system.

What health professionals told us

The Communicating Health project conducted a pilot survey with health industry professionals to inform the development of the Communicating Health Toolkit – a resource to support health professionals improve their communication with their clients and the general community.


The survey aimed to get input from health professionals about how they communicate with their clients and the broader community about health and to seek professional’s feedback on areas of communication that they would like to improve upon. The survey was distributed via social media on Monash University channels, and through health professional groups in Australia on Facebook and LinkedIn.


Using a convenience sample, a total of 77 health professionals completed the survey in full. Most participants identified as a health promotion professional (37.78%) or dietitian (35.56%). Survey participants worked in a range of settings including community health settings, hospitals and private practice. Participants similarly work with several different age groups, although they were less likely to work with infants and toddlers.

You can download a copy of the report here.

Where to next? - Planning or to helpful resources linked below

Links & Resources

Publications

Articles published in the journal Nutrients:

  • Using the Internet: Nutrition Information-Seeking Behaviours of Lay People Enrolled in a Massive Online Nutrition Course (by Adamski M, Truby H, M. Klassen K, Cowan S, Gibson S.) - https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12030750

  • Inflaming Public Interest: A Qualitative Study of Adult Learners’ Perceptions on Nutrition and Inflammation (by Cowan S, Sood S, Truby H, Dordevic A, Adamski M, Gibson S.) - https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12020345

  • Promoting Evidence Based Nutrition Education Across the World in a Competitive Space: Delivering a Massive Open Online Course (by Gibson S, Adamski M, Blumfield M, Dart J, Murgia C, Volders E, Truby H.) - https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12020344


Article published in the Journal of Social Marketing: