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Updated 5/15/12
Health Communications
Why Employers Care
Multinational employers are increasingly looking to impact the health and wellness of their global employees. These employers are looking for effective methods to communicate to employees about health and health care in the hopes of increasing the well-being of their workers and managing the cost of health care benefits. These communication efforts are especially challenging on a global scale. Because the factors that influence health behaviors are numerous and vary by culture, society, biology, geography, economy, etc., promoting and sustaining these behaviors is very complex.
What Employers Can Do
Employers must be strategic in their health communication efforts. Effective communication involves dialogue between the message sender and the message receiver. Messages must be well-targeted, easily understood and appropriate if they are to achieve their desired impact. For an employer's health and wellness pursuits to be successful, they must be understood by the employee. Ensuring effective communication in a global and/or cross-cultural context is even more challenging given the need to understand both culture and language.
Employers should be strategic in developing wellness promotion objectives by using a "business" mindset. Program staff should follow an evidence-based, results-oriented and participatory planning process. Sound strategic communication starts with "understanding the situation" — including your audience, its primary health concerns and the complex web of personal, interpersonal and community level factors that influence health behaviors and choices.
Global Business Group on Health Resources
Case Studies
Webinar Series: Promoting a Healthy Global Workforce Through Effective Communication
Action in Brief Series
Other
Case Studies
Webinar Series: Promoting a Healthy Global Workforce Through Effective Communication
In July 2010 GHBI sponsored a webinar series entitled, “Promoting a Healthy Global Workforce through Effective Communication.” The purpose of this initiative was to highlight key issues in effective global health communication with an eye to the needs and challenges of a global employer.
- Webinar #1: Health Behavior Theory and Model Overview — July 15, 2010
Topics addressed:
- Individual Health Behavior Models
- Interpersonal Health Behavior Models
- Social Networks/Community Level Models
Recording 
Slides 
- Webinar #2: Behavior Change Communication (BCC) Best Practices — July 22, 2010
Topics addressed:
- Upfront Strategic Planning
- Social Marketing Approach
- Using Evidence to Inform and Evaluate
Recording
Slides
- Webinar #3: Health Promotion in a Global Context — July 29, 2010
Topics addressed:
- Special Considerations and Challenges
- Operating in a Multinational Corporate Environment
Recording
Slides
Action in Brief Series
To highlight relevant health communication best practices discussed in the above webinar series, GHBI developed a new product series, Action in Brief, which frame these issues and challenges for a large employer audience. For ease of use, these documents are organized by the webinar in which they were addressed.
Webinar # 1
- Thinking Ecologically — Many factors influence health behaviors and promoting sustained behavior change is highly complex. An ecological perspective recognizes this inherent complexity by emphasizing the constant interaction of, and interdependence between, the multiple factors that impact a person’s health behavior.
Webinar # 2
- Branding Wellness Initiatives — The power of brands can be used to effectively promote and position a wellness program and its interventions to targeted employees and key stakeholders.
- Choosing Channels — A well researched, planned and executed communication strategy – defining the mix of messages, channels and media – is vital to successful health communications.
- Communicating Strategically — Strategic communication requires developing wellness promotion objectives with a “business” mindset and ensuring that program staff follow an evidence-based, results-oriented and participatory planning process.
- Understanding Your Target Audience — Understanding the target audience is a vital first step to effectively positioning a wellness program, its messages and activities.
- Using Evidence to Inform and Evaluate — Being evidence-based requires a strategic approach to communication planning. This starts with a thorough analysis of the situation and by establishing realistic goals, objectives and performance indicators at the program design phase.
- Using Logframes — Following the Logical Framework Approach requires analytical and logical thinking about the goals and objectives of a wellness program and the expected outputs and activities required to achieve them.
Webinar # 3
- Addressing Gender — Gender plays a critical role in workplace social dynamics and can significantly impact corporate wellness and health promotion initiatives.
- Adapting Existing Materials — There is a right and wrong way to adapting health promotion materials. The key to adapting health promotion materials is to take existing content and messages and localize it for use in a particular country or population.
- Behavior Change Communication Best Practices and the Corporate Environment — When developing wellness and health promotion initiatives, companies should look to the theories and application of behavior change communication (BCC) to maximize program effectiveness.
- Ensuring Cultural and Linguistic Competence — Effective communication in a global and/or cross-cultural context is challenged by the need to achieve both cultural relevance and linguistic comprehension.
- Pretesting Materials — Pretesting is an invaluable step in the development of effective health communication materials. Pretesting is the process of determining audience reaction to and understanding of health messages before those materials are finalized.
Other Resources
GHBI has identified a number of resources that employers may find helpful when developing and rolling out a health communication strategy. These are merely a selection of the resources that are available. If you have any questions or need additional materials, please contact global@businessgrouphealth.org.
Resource topics include
Health and Behavior Change Communication (BCC)
Cultural and Linguistic Competence
Gender
Pretesting
Health and Behavior Change Communication (BCC)
- Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has developed a number of resources about behavior change communication (BCC).
- The New P-Process: Steps in Strategic Communication
This brochure highlights the steps within the P-Process, a framework designed to guide communication professionals as they develop strategic communication programs. This step-by-step road map leads communication professionals from a loosely defined concept about changing behavior to a strategic and participatory program with a measurable impact on the intended audience.
- Population Reports: Communication for Better Health
This report outlines how project managers of BCC programs can build effective behavior change communication programs.
- Tools for Behavior Change Communication
This report is designed to help with planning and developing a health-related BCC program.
- Logical Framework Approach
This resource – a chapter of a larger toolkit – provides guidance on preparing a Logical Framework Matrix or logframe.
- Making Health Communication Programs Work
This U.S. Department of Health & Human Services developed guide provides guidance for health communication programs — to get new initiatives started soundly and mature programs working even better.
- Social Marketing and Public Health: Lessons from the Field
This guide – a product from the Social Marketing National Excellence Collaborative –provides examples of how social marketing strategies have been and can be applied to everyday public health challenges.
Cultural and Linguistic Competence
Gender
- A Woman-Centered Approach to the
U.S. Global Health Initiative
This background paper outlines the Obama Administration’s commitment to developing a woman-centered approach to the country’s global health initiatives. This document defines what a woman-centered approach is by identifying its key elements, providing examples of what it looks like, and demonstrating its importance to national efforts to improve global health.
- Gender and Health Promotion: A Multisectoral Policy Approach
This paper addresses why successful and effective health promotion initiatives must take into account gender differences in biology, social standing, family structure, etc.
- The Gender Guide for Health Communication Programs
This Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health resource encourages the incorporation of gender-based roles and responsibilities in the design, implementation, and evaluation of health communication programs. It provide questions to help program managers determine how gender roles, for both women and men, may impede access to health information, restrict use of health services, or limit beneficial health outcomes.
- Sifting the Evidence: Gender and Tobacco Control
This World Health Organization (WHO) developed paper examines the gendered aspects of tobacco use and the gendered responses to efforts to prevent or reduce tobacco use across the world.
- Why Gender Matters: A Resource Guide for Integrating Gender Considerations intoCommunities Work at Rio Tinto
This document outlines the business imperative for recognizing the critical role that gender plays in the social dynamics of local communities and worksites. These social dynamics can impact on the quality and effectiveness of community engagement programs.
Pretesting
- How to Conduct Effective Pretests: Ensuring Meaningful BCC Messages and Materials
This handbook was developed by AIDSCAP’s (AIDS Control and Prevention Project) Behavior Change Communication Unit to help field level planners and implementers conduct simple, effective pretests of behavior change communication (BCC) materials. Although content is specific to HIV/AIDS, the guidance and lessons are applicable to all BCC efforts.
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