---
title: Health Communication
description: Health communication focuses on how information is shared to influence personal health decisions and public health policies. You will understand how to design effective public health campaigns, analyze patient-provider interactions, and communicate complex medical data to diverse audiences.
category: social-sciences
subcategory: communication-studies
difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced
url: /subject/health-communication
---

# Health Communication

Health communication focuses on how information is shared to influence personal health decisions and public health policies. You will understand how to design effective public health campaigns, analyze patient-provider interactions, and communicate complex medical data to diverse audiences.

## Available Resources

3 Books • 2 Courses

## Courses

### 1. Listening Skills for Healthcare

University of Leeds short online course on active listening for healthcare professionals. It examines how attentive listening shapes patient interactions and quality of care, helping learners understand what effective listening involves and apply active-listening techniques in conversations with patients.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/listening-skills-for-healthcare

**Tags:** active-listening, patient-communication, clinical-communication, healthcare, empathy

### 2. Health Communication

This course explores effective communication strategies for healthcare professionals to enhance teamwork and patient care. Learners will reflect upon giving and receiving feedback, managing emotions, addressing microaggressions, and handling conflict in the workplace. Through real-world scenarios, nurses learn to build trust, foster collaboration, and communicate with empathy across interdisciplinary teams.

**Difficulty:** Beginner | **Language:** English | **Duration:** 3 hours | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://www.coursera.org/learn/lecturio-communication-in-healthcare

**Tags:** courses, humanities-social-sciences, communication-studies

## Books

### 1. Health Communication: From Theory to Practice

**Author:** Renata Schiavo

A textbook mapping health communication as a discipline, from behavioural and social-change theory to program planning, evaluation, and cross-cultural practice. Readers finish able to design and assess a public health communication programme grounded in strategic research.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0787982059?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, communication-studies

### 2. Communicating Health

**Author:** Gary L. Kreps, Elizabeth N. Kunimoto

Kreps and Kunimoto examine how culture, language, and power shape clinical encounters in multicultural health settings. Readers gain concepts and case examples for diagnosing communication breakdowns between providers and patients from differing cultural backgrounds.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0803947143?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, communication-studies

### 3. Health Literacy

**Author:** Institute of Medicine, Roundtable on Health Literacy

A National Academies workshop summary on the FDA Safe Use Initiative, examining how limited health literacy contributes to preventable medication harm. Readers see how labelling, counselling, and system design affect whether patients take drugs correctly.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0309159318?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, humanities-social-sciences, communication-studies

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