Health Communication Strategy Report

This report discusses the implementation of a health communication strategy for anxiety disorder prevention and treatment. It includes the background, strategic goals, priority areas, stakeholders, communication tools, evaluation and measurement, and risks.

Running head: HEALTH COMMUNICATION PROGRAM
HEALTH COMMUNICATION STRATEGY REPORT
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author note

1
HEALTH COMMUNICATION PROGRAM
Background
The world Health Organisation has mentioned mental health as a state of wellbeing
that helps every individual to understand their abilities to cope with critical health conditions
and increased their contribution to the society (World Health Organisation 2019). Mental
health has termed as the crucial aspect of cumulative wellbeing, it is still noted that mental
health related aspects are ignored. As per the World Health Organisation (2019) mental
health concerns has affected more than 270 million around the world and within these anxiety
disorder has increased its prevalence from 2.5% to 7%, hence indicating towards an alarming
condition. In Australian perspective, more than 45% of population is suffering from mild,
moderate or high anxiety condition and more than 2million population has mentioned of
suffering from anxiety disorder in Australia (Beyondblue.org.au 2019).
As mentioned by Hou (2014), lack of knowledge and health literacy about mental
health conditions are one of the primary concerns due to which the prevalence of anxiety has
increased among the population of Australia. In such circumstances, application of
communication strategy should be conducted so that awareness and interventions for this
disorder could be spread among the population of Australia.
Strategic goal and overview of the communication strategy implemented
The primary aim and objectives of this communication strategy would be:
 Creating opportunities within the community so that a large section of society
starts discussing these among themselves and with commencement of
communication the society would be able to understand the importance of
mental health interventions for their cumulative health.

2
HEALTH COMMUNICATION PROGRAM
 Further, with respect to the previous goal, increased communication and
discussion about the important of mental therapies and interventions, increased
and enhanced health literacy would be achieved.
Priority areas
1. Recognition: This key area of priority would be achieved through the spreading
the information about identification, diagnosis and scope of treatment in the
society so that people that are suffering from the symptoms of anxiety disorder
would be able to overcome their healthcare condition.
2. Prevention/treatment: this key area of priority discusses about the
implementation of effective interventions so that people could overcome their
anxiety related complications and the number of [people affected with anxiety
disorder could be reduced.
priorityareas1.identification2.treatment(Pictorial representation of strategic goal of health communication strategy developed for anxiety
disorder prevention and treatment (developed by author)

3
HEALTH COMMUNICATION PROGRAM
Associated stakeholders and communication strategy
This aspect of the healthcare strategy communication involves stakeholders or
participants of the health communication strategy and those who would be actively or
indirectly would be a part of this communication process. Therefore, as mentioned by
Valente et al. (2015), with proper identification of the target audience and all the members
that would be indirectly involved in the communication process, effective strategies would be
conveyed to them to achieve success in the care process. There are three type of stakeholders
that are generally involved in health communication strategies and as per Nodulman et al.
(2015), these people determine the effectiveness of the health communication strategies and
plans as they take part in the communication process.
The chosen community for this communication strategy would be Wadeye city
community. Wadeye town ship is situated 400 KM away from the capital of Darwin and as
per the governmental data, more than 2600 people live in this community, within which 90%
of people belong to the Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islanders. Despite the fact that the
community has proper availability of healthcare services, proper staffing and awareness
among the healthcare professionals, the level of anxiety is higher in the areas. Hence, this
community would be targeted for the health communication to increase their affinity towards
mental health treatment and they would be able to overcome their mental complications
effectively.
Besides this community, other stakeholders that would be included in the
communication strategy would be educational institutes, healthcare services, food outlets,
FAHCSIA, food outlets, and health service agencies in the community. Besides these,
community groups, TRAAC or elders would also be included as the primary stakeholders of
the community program so that people could be provided with effective interventions. These
stakeholders would be asked to attend multiple meets and gathers so that they can become

4
Stores and committee
members
BRAACS and media,
FAHCSIA, food outlets
FAFT healthcare centres
Independent grocers so that
with their help,
communication could be
spread
Boarding and catholic care
would be included
Power
Interest
Stakeholder analysis matrix
HEALTH COMMUNICATION PROGRAM
aware of the strategies and interventions that would be used for the communication process.
The stakeholder analysis matrix has been mentioned below:

5
HEALTH COMMUNICATION PROGRAM
Communication tools
As mentioned in the paper of Hornik (2018), communication tools are referred as the
strategies which is used by organisations, healthcare facilities or promotional activists to
develop, plan and implement strategies so that the target audience could be communicated
with the desired message. In this case of anxiety disorder related identification and treatment
strategies, the target audience would be communicated with the important information using
multiple communication tools so that effectiveness of the strategy could be maintained (Hou
2014). There are multiple aspects which could be used as a communication tool such as
advertisements or media releases, survey conducted for the identification of health literacy
among the chosen population, creating a small and effective video for advertisement and
finally choosing and developing a blog so that people could be provided with effective
intervention and information related to anxiety disorder. In this aspect of health
communication strategy among the chosen population, the advertisement with media release
and then selection of mass media for the enhanced reach of the health communication would
be selected. As mentioned in the paper of Best, Manktelow and Taylor (2014), advertisement
is the most effective and influencing communication tool that helps to influence a majority
amount of people with the message that is provided thorugh the advertisement and the this
helps to spread the important message to a larger section of the society with minimal effort.
Further, as per Hou (2014), there are multiple types of advertisement strategies that is
conducted in the healthcare strategies and hence, it is the responsibility of the communication
strategy stakeholders to understand the type of tool would be useful in spreading the news
(Hornik 2018). Newspaper article, pamphlet, brochure, radio or television advertisement and
utilisation of social media could be few of the options that could be used in the identification
and utilisation of the communication tools for the growth and increased awareness of the
community related to anxiety disorder.

6
HEALTH COMMUNICATION PROGRAM
Evaluation and measurement
Evaluation and measurement of the implemented communication strategy would help
to understand the merits and demerits of the applied communication strategy on the
community that is affected with anxiety disorder. As the communication strategy aims to
create awareness in the society related their mental health and especially their risk of anxiety
disorder so that they can take effective measures and implement effective interventions for
their mental health improvement (Lundgren and McMakin 2018). This communication
strategy would be conducted for more than 6 months, and in this period, the number of hits
collected in the website of the health promotional plan, the number or people who would
view the videos and like the tweets and status of the communities would be analysed. This
would provide an estimate number of population among which the communication related to
anxiety has been reached (Best, Manktelow and Taylor 2014). Further, as an effective aspect,
it was mentioned that people who were involved in the communication plan would be asked
to fill a close ended survey so that people and their understanding about the aspect could be
easily observed. Hence, these are the aspects using which the evaluation process would be
conducted in the proposed communication strategy.
Risks
While conducting a communication strategy for the involvement and awareness of the
community regarding the anxiety awareness and prevention among the chosen population of
Wad eye, a simple risk management plan should be included in the process (World Health
Organization 2015). As per Renger et al. (2015), while analysing and conducting an effective
communication process that has the ability to influence a wide array of population in the city,
emergence of risk factors could not be eliminated. In this aspect the anxiety disorder related
communication strategy should also be inclusive of effective risk management plan to
eliminate the possible risks present in the process (World Health Organization 2015). The

7
HEALTH COMMUNICATION PROGRAM
risk management plan would include steps such as identification of risks and then analysing
their impact on the communication strategy process (Eldredge et al. 2016). The risks related
to this communication strategy would be risk to the image or the reputation of the
organisation, lack or shortage if finances in between the process or the inability of the
communication awareness plan to spread the physical/mental health and wellbeing to the
people (World Health Organization 2015). Hence, the risk assessment and management
strategies would be inclusive of all these factors so that people working for the
communication strategy could be provided with effective intervention so that the risks could
be overcome and could be completed within the pre-determined timeline (World Health
Organization 2015).

8
HEALTH COMMUNICATION PROGRAM
Reference
Best, P., Manktelow, R. and Taylor, B., 2014. Online communication, social media and
adolescent wellbeing: A systematic narrative review. Children and Youth Services
Review, 41, pp.27-36.
Beyondblue.org.au 2019. beyondblue. [online] Beyondblue.org.au. Available at:
https://www.beyondblue.org.au/media/statistics [Accessed 27 May 2019].
Eldredge, L.K.B., Markham, C.M., Ruiter, R.A., Kok, G., Fernandez, M.E. and Parcel, G.S.,
2016. Planning health promotion programs: an intervention mapping approach. John Wiley
& Sons.
Hornik, R., 2018. Public health education and communication as policy instruments for
bringing about changes in behavior. In Social marketing (pp. 45-58). Psychology Press.
Hou, S.I., 2014. Health education: theoretical concepts, effective strategies and core
competencies. Health promotion practice, 15(5), pp.619-621.
Lundgren, R.E. and McMakin, A.H., 2018. Risk communication: A handbook for
communicating environmental, safety, and health risks. John Wiley & Sons.
Renger, R., Foltysova, J., Becker, K.L. and Souvannasacd, E., 2015. The power of the
context map: Designing realistic outcome evaluation strategies and other unanticipated
benefits. Evaluation and program planning, 52, pp.118-125.
Valente, T.W., Palinkas, L.A., Czaja, S., Chu, K.H. and Brown, C.H., 2015. Social network
analysis for program implementation. PloS one, 10(6), p.e0131712.
World Health Organization 2019. Mental Health. [online] World Health Organization.
Available at: https://www.who.int/mental_health/en/ [Accessed 27 May 2019].

9
HEALTH COMMUNICATION PROGRAM
World Health Organization, 2015. Guide to Monitoring and Evaluation for Collaborative
TB/HIV Activities--2015 Update. World Health Organization.
World Health Organization, 2015. Public health for mass gatherings: key considerations.
World Health Organization.