CAS 567 – Health Campaigns

The World Health Organization defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” A premise in health promotion and disease prevention is that exposure to and consequences of illness and injury can be minimized through people’s actions. Health campaigns are broadly defined as communication strategies intentionally designed to encourage people to engage in the actions that promote physical, mental, and/or social wellbeing. This course is for students who hope to craft effective health campaigns.

Health campaigns may include face-to-face or mediated conversations as well as verbal and nonverbal messages. The campaigns may focus on encouraging the behavior directly, such as compliance messages attempting to encourage parents to have their children vaccinated, or indirectly, such as raising public awareness about the emerging health threat of antibiotic resistant bacteria infections (which can be slowed through vaccination). The campaigns may be addressing pandemic conditions involving global coordination to specific ones appearing within a smaller, cohesive network in a particular neighborhood or family.

Course Objectives

Students will learn theories and methods to design theory-driven, audience-relevant campaigns; topics include of audience analysis, campaign design, and program evaluation.