ABSTRACT Research has shown that targeted, or episodic, conversations impact health behavior outcomes, like drinking, smoking, and sex, even later in life during emerging adulthood. However, little is truly known about families that engage in these episodic conversations. Research has speculated that the mundane everyday conversations may influence episodic communication and their subsequent behaviors. Therefore, steps were taken to better understand these everyday, or macro-level, health conversations. Study I operationalizes everyday family health communication that occurs within families to explore the if and why people subsequently engage in episodic health communication using a scale with 35 items developed from prior research. Participants (N = 163) completed a survey, which allowed for several factor analyses to narrow the measure down to 16 items. Study II validates the measure by examining the influence of everyday family health communication on targeted, episodic, health conversations, and health outcomes. Study II included 216 participants who responded to this new measure, as well as items pertaining to episodic communication (e.g. about alcohol or drug use) to assess the effects of everyday family health communication on episodic health communication within families. Results indicate that everyday family health communication was important in understanding family episodic communication about health behaviors and health behavior outcomes.