International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

Ethics is at the heart of →  health communication. Ethical issues are embedded in a wide array of health communication activities that aim to influence people's health-related beliefs or behaviors. These activities include disseminating information about particular health risks, persuading people to adopt healthy lifestyles or to persuade others to adopt healthy lifestyles, and modeling healthy behaviors. Invariably, such health communication activities raise a multitude of ethical concerns, in particular because they deal with deeply held personal preferences and social values, or aim to foster social norms opposed by certain groups. Perhaps because the general intent of health communication interventions is to promote the health of individuals or populations, ethical issues embedded in these activities are often unacknowledged. However, all aspects of communication aimed to influence people's health involve ethical issues, from the choices made regarding which populations should be the “target” of the intervention, to the strategic approaches used. Health communication also involves addressing issues such as responsibility, risk, and social and cultural values (→  Risk Perceptions ; Risk Communication ). Further, some critics maintain that because health communication interventions have such a strong presence in society, they compete – along with commercial advertising – in ... log in or subscribe to read full text