Public Health Communication

The rapid development of biomedical technologies and the enormous changes in the field of information technology which have characterized these first decades of the 21st century have profoundly modified the world of "health communication", particularly in the field of public health. If, on the one hand, the possibility for citizens to access information on health, therapies and health care can contribute to improve the levels of empowerment and health literacy of the population, on the other hand it can feed phenomena such as infodemia, the overabundance of information on health, and of fake news, which have become widely available in the physical and digital environment. Having access to so much information in an increasingly "disintermediated" medium can create confusion, as citizens have difficulty in understanding which sources are reliable and, consequently, which are the correct indications on which to base their health choices. As the Covid-19 pandemic has shown, these phenomena can contribute to the creation of mistrust in the work of health organizations, putting the achievement of results of public health strategies at risk, if these are not well supported by health communication strategies. There are many aspects that need to be better investigated in the field of research in this area and they can, by way of example, be traced back to issues related to health promotion, the most effective models of communication, new concepts related to the "marketing of health services", and the use of new information technologies (web based, mobile phone apps, social networks, and so on). This research area is characterized by a strong interdisciplinary component, with contributions coming, for example, from the fields of engineering, economics, sociology; and by a strong translational tension aimed at making effective and efficient tools available to health facilities and policy makers, which can be used for the implementation / involvement of populations in the implementation of strategic plans of Public Health. The study of new communication technologies also opens up interesting possibilities for networking in the university field, as well as collaborations for the implementation of spin-off projects in collaboration with the productive realities in the area.