Increasing the Public’s Awareness: The Importance of Patient-Practitioner Communication

Abstract

ffective communication among professionals, patients, and communities is a significant public health concern. With up to one-third of individuals in some health care settings struggling with limited understanding of health issues and instructions, health literacy has emerged as an important cause of health disparities and a significant public health issue. 1 Effective communication to bring about behavior change requires a focus on both communities and individuals. From a public health perspective, communication must capture the collective nature of community health while recognizing individual health literacy issues. Successful communication within communities requires community involvement, the use of nontraditional approaches, and a focus on social norms. In this commentary we discuss specific public health approaches to working in communities with low levels of health literacy and the use of the social marketing process to develop an array of interventions that can impact all the determinants of a health problem in a population. The best strategy to increase effective communication and improve health knowledge and skills is to increase health literacy levels overall. This requires significant time and resources. In the interim, the emphasis must be on working within existing levels of health literacy to develop more effective prevention and self-management of acute and chronic illness. Best practices in the medical setting have been described throughout this issue of the North Carolina Medical Journal . In the public health setting, promising community practices include the use of lay health advisors and engagement of important community institutions.