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Health Behaviour, Promotion & Communication

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Course Type Course Code No. Of Credits
Discipline Core SPG2PH411 2

Semester and Year Offered: 2nd Semester; 1st year

Course Coordinator and Team: N. Nakkeeran and Samik Chowdhury

Email of course coordinator: nakkeeran@aud.ac.in

Pre-requisites: None

Aim:

  • To equip students with knowledge of key concepts around health behaviour and concepts, principles and theories of communication for behaviour change
  • To equip students with skills to design and evaluate health communication and behaviour change strategies
  • To encourage students to critically analyse behaviour change and communication strategies in conjunction with social determinants of health, deploying key social science theories.
  • To engage with the current communication technology scenario to appreciate its role in influencing behaviour and consequently, health, at population levels

Course Outcomes: On completion of this course students are expected to:

  • Appreciate the role of behaviour change and communication strategies in public health interventions
  • Acquire skills to design and evaluate health communication and behaviour change strategies for public health interventions
  • Appreciate the major social and behavioural science theories and concepts in critically understanding behaviour change and communication strategies as applicable in the modern context
  • Appreciate deployment of communication strategies to shape health behaviour at the population level.

Brief description of modules/ Main modules:

Module 1: Health behaviour – Understanding ‘behaviour’, Sick-role, illness behaviour, risk behaviour, health and care seeking, models of health seeking behaviour; behaviour change - key concepts and theories around health education & health promotion; knowledge – intention - action gaps; critique on health behaviour models. Social science theories and concepts to understand human behaviour / social action and public health interventions; role of social determinants of health in shaping health behaviour.

Module 2: Health Communication - key concepts, principles, and theories of health communication; channels of communication – inter-personal communication, mass-communication and social media communication. Target groups for behaviour change – community, health workers, providers, other stakeholders. Communication for health literacy and advocacy: Counselling and awareness campaigns, community engagement for behaviour change, participatory techniques for providing health communication skills; advocacy and media engagement, social marketing;  posters, info-graphics, designing a health communication strategy. Measuring health behaviour change and health literacy

Module 3: Critical understanding of behaviour change and communication models – Critical theories of communication; concepts of discourse, issue culture and their role in shaping public opinion and decision making in public health; ‘infodemic’; stigma, discriminatory and exclusionary practices in health communication; deficit perspective. Understanding the alignment/diversification between theory and modern communication practice

Assessment Details with weights:

  • Assessment 1 - Designing or evaluating a health communication / behaviour change strategy (30%)
  • Assessment 2 - A term paper / written assignment (30%)
  • Assessment 3 –Summative end semester exam or a written assignment (40%)

Reading List:

  • Albury C., et al. Communication practices for delivering health behaviour change conversations in primary care: a systematic review and thematic synthesis BMC Family Practice (2019) 20:111, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12875-019-0992-x
  • Carrasco, MA., Behavioural and social science research opportunities, Bull World Health Organ 2021;99:834–836, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.20.285370
  • Dunn, AL., Resnicow, K., Klesges, LM, “Improving measurement methods for behaviour change interventions: opportunities for innovation”, Health Education Research Theory & Practice, Vol.21 (Supplement 1): Pages i121–i124 2006
  • Edberg M. Essentials of Health Behavior: Social and Behavioral Theory in Public Health. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers
  • Evans, WD., “How social marketing works in health care”, BMJ Vol. 332 20 May 2006: 1207-10, bmj.com.
  • Gordon, Ross, et al. "The effectiveness of social marketing interventions for health improvement: What's the evidence?" Public Health, 2006, 120. 1133-1139.
  • Hayden J. Introduction to health behaviour theory. (2nd edition) Burlington, MA: Jones & Barlett Learning
  • Hoppe, T., “Spanish Flu”: When Infectious Disease Names Blur Origins and Stigmatize Those Infected, AJPH November 2018, Vol 108, No. 11, 1462-64
  • Houser, H., The Aesthetics of Environmental Visualizations: More than Information Ecstasy? Public Culture 26:2 doi 10.1215/08992363-2392084
  • Jenkins, CD., Building Better Health: A Handbook of Behavioral Change, Pan American Health Organization, 2003
  • Lefebvre, R.C. (2000). Theories and models in social marketing. In P.N. Bloom & G.T. Gundlach (Eds), Handbook of marketing and society. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications. Retrieved from http://socialmarketing. blogs.com/Publications/Theoretical_Models_in_Social_Marketing.pdf
  • Maibach, E.W. (2003). Recreating communities to support active living: A new role for social marketing. American Journal of Health Promotion, 18(1), 114–119.
  • Mheidly, N., Fares, J. Leveraging media and health communication strategies to overcome the COVID-19 infodemic. J Public Health Pol 41, 410–420 (2020).
  • Monroe, A., et al., Improving malaria control by understanding human behaviour, Bull World Health Organ 2021;99:837–839 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.20.285369
  • Nakkeeran N, Sacks E, N Srinivas P et al. Beyond Behaviour as Individual Choice: A Call to Expand Understandings around Social Science in Health Research [version 1; peer review: 2 approved]. Wellcome Open Res 2021, 6:212 (https://doi.org/10.12688/wellcomeopenres.17149.1
  • Novelli, W. (1990). Applying social marketing to health promotion and disease prevention. In K. Glanz, F.M. Lewis & B.K. Rimer (Eds), Health behaviour and health education: Theory, research and practice (pp. 324–369). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers
  • Pigg, SL., Languages of Sex and AIDS in Nepal: Notes on the Social Production of Commensurability, Cultural Anthropology, Vol.16, No.4,481-54, https://doi.org/10.1525/can.2001.16.4.481
  • Rimal, R. N., & Lapinski, M. K. (2009). Why health communication is important in public health. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 87(4), 247–247a. https://doi.org/10.2471/blt.08.056713
  • Schiavo, R. (2013). Health communication: From theory to practice. Jossey-Bass.
  • Stuber, J., Meyer, I., and Link B., Stigma, prejudice, discrimination and health, Soc Sci Med. 2008 August ; 67(3): 351–357. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2008.03.023
  • Wakefield, M. A., Loken, B., & Hornik, R. C. (2010). Use of mass media campaigns to change health behaviour. Lancet (London, England), 376(9748), 1261–1271.
  • WHO, “Behaviour change strategies and health: the role of health systems”, Regional Committee for Europe Fifty-eighth session Tbilisi, Georgia, 15–18 September 2008, https://www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/70185/RC58_edoc10.pdf
  • Wilson M, Allen DD, Li JC. Improving measurement in health education and health behaviour research using item response modeling: comparison with the classical test theory approach. Health Educ Res 2006; 21(Suppl 1): i19–i32
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