KCHC Kentucky Conference on Health Communication
2008 Conference
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Overview

2008 Kentucky Conference on Health Communication:
The Future of Health Communication: Where Are We Going and How Do We Get There?

Location:

Crowne Plaza Hotel Lexington
1375 Harrodsburg Road
Lexington, KY 40504
1-859-255-4281

Preconference: Thursday, April 17

Health communication campaigns are a key tool for influencing the health of the public.  While such campaigns have been studied for decades, the poor evaluation of many campaign efforts has slowed scientific progress on determining 1) the true effects of campaign efforts, as well as 2) which principles of campaign design most influence the success of campaigns.  Unlike other health intervention approaches that lend themselves to randomized controlled trials, health communication campaigns are typically undertaken “in the field” where randomization to conditions is not possible.  While a major strength of campaigns is their ability to demonstrate high external validity, commonly used evaluation approaches often have low internal validity.

The purpose of this pre-conference is to discuss the issues and challenges that arise when trying to evaluate health communication campaigns in a rigorous manner.  Presentations will be made on a variety of approaches to campaign evaluation, followed by a dialogue regarding such approaches.  Areas to be addressed include the following: What kinds of alternative designs could be used to rigorously evaluate health communication campaigns?  How can national campaigns be evaluated?  How can time series designs be used to evaluate campaigns?  How can methodological innovations such as propensity scoring be used to increase the rigor of evaluation design?  And finally, can randomized controlled designs be used in some circumstances to evaluate campaigns?

Featured speakers for the pre-conference are Brian Flynn, University of Vermont; Robert Hornik, Pennsylvania State University—Annenberg School; Marian Huhman, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Stella Babalola, Johns Hopkins University. UK researchers Seth Noar, Phil Palmgreen and Rick Zimmerman also will present.

Conference: Friday, April 18 and Saturday, April 19

Health communication pervades all aspects of our lives, from personal to professional, across all communication contexts.  As researchers, educators, health care providers, policy makers and students, we have both the privilege and responsibility to reduce the unequal burden of diseases and to improve the quality of life through our global work.  We are faced with a number of crucial questions: How do we design and implement effective health behavior change messages?  How do we deliver the messages to make sure they reach the right audiences?  How do we ensure that audiences are able to understand, accept and act on the messages?   How do we ascertain we are sending the “right” message?  How do we capitalize on the strengths of interdisciplinary research and maintain a focus on communication theory development?  How do we engage in translational research that applies findings to practice so that members of the community can benefit from our work?  As we consider the future of health communication, we must stop and ask ourselves: Where are we going and how do we get there?

The 10th biennial Kentucky Conference on Health Communication will feature competitive papers, posters, and panel proposals that focus on major issues facing health communication research and practice as we head toward the second decade of the 21st century.  Friday, April 18 will feature competitive papers, posters, and panel sessions.  Saturday, April 19 will feature competitive papers and panel sessions, as well as a luncheon presentation by the Donohew Health Communication Scholar Award winner.

 

Updated: March 30, 2009