Academic Organizations: ECREA

Abstract

This entry provides a description of the development of health communication in Europe and covers how it became visible in academic organizations in Europe such as the European Communication Research and Education Association (ECREA). While health communication as a field was already regarded as an established discipline in the United States by the end of the twentieth century, it had just emerged in Europe. One important step to foster its establishment was the foundation of a Temporary Working Group (TWG) within the ECREA in 2017, which became a thematic section in 2022 and organizes annual conferences. Several national (or more regional) scholarly associations of health communication researchers already existed in Europe. Among them are two associations in Spain, one in the Netherlands and Flanders, and one in Germany, also embracing scholars from Austria and Switzerland. A major step within the development of the community was the founding of a journal. The European Journal of Health Communication was officially launched in November 2019 at the European Conference of Health Communication in Zurich and published its first issue in September 2020. Thus, health communication research in Europe appears to be a vivid and growing field.