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Corporate Health Promotion Program communication is important to all aspects of Wellness and preventive medicine and is relevant to:

• Healthcare provider-patient relationships

• An individual’s exposure to, search for, and use of Corporate Health Promotion Program information

• Effective counseling and patient education for behavior change

• Content of public health messages and community campaigns

Effective health communication should have these attributes:

• Accuracy: content is valid and error-free

• Availability: delivered or placed where the intended audience can access the information

• Balance: content presents benefits and risks of potential actions

• Consistency: content is locally consistent over time and is also consistent with information from other reliable sources

• Evidence-based: content and methods of delivery are based on relevant scientific proof

• Reach: content gets to or is available to as many people as possible in the target population

• Reliability: content source is credible; content is kept up-to-date

• Repetition: delivery of/access to the content is continued over time, to reinforce the impact with the audience and to reach new members of the target population

• Timeliness: content is provided when the audience is most receptive to, or in need of, the specific information

• Understandability: reading, language levels, and format are appropriate for the specific audience (i.e., Employees, Family Members, Garrison leadership, etc.)

What the research says about health communication

• Health communication best supports Wellness when multiple communication methods are used to reach specific audiences.

• Effective Wellness and communication initiatives should reflect an audiencecentered perspective, and reflect the preferred formats, contexts, and means of communication for the intended audience.

Material adapted from: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Healthy People 2010. 2nd ed. With Understanding and Improving Health and Objectives for Improving Health. 2 vols. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, November 2000.

http://www.healthypeople.gov/document/HTML/Volume1/11HealthCom.htm