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Issue highlights insights from health communication campaigns and seeks to increase access to critical health communication research, science, and practice
New York, NY | April 7, 2025 – The Society for Health Communication and the Journal of Health Communication at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) have published its inaugural special issue: Successes and Failures: Everything We Learned from Health Communication Campaigns and Programs. It includes nine peer-reviewed research papers from health communication programs in the U.S. and around the world, featuring insights from the consequences of campaigns, studies with innovative and/or robust evaluations that yielded less than desirable results, and lessons learned from crisis communication efforts. The entire special issue is being provided free to view for the next 30 days by Taylor & Francis.
“This inaugural special issue is the result of an official collaboration forged in 2024 between the Society and the Journal and follows an open call for papers,” says Dr. Scott Ratzan, the Journal’s founding editor-in-chief and distinguished lecturer at CUNY SPH. “We welcome all readers to engage with the Journal and Society through this special issue as we advance application of effective, quality health communication that impacts people globally.”
The special issue spotlights the scientific process and how scientists rigorously documented health communication failures, mistakes, and lessons learned to affect people’s health knowledge, beliefs and behaviors. The issue offers evidence across three broad themes including making sense of scientific failures to find communication effects; existing evidence on how emotion and other factors can condition effects; and lessons learned about how campaign development and evaluation shapes our understanding of what constitutes useful health communication activities.
“We often discuss the impact of health communication efforts, but not always the mistakes, the unintended consequences, and the lessons learned along the way,” says Dr. Ashani Johnson-Turbes, president and Steering Committee chair at the Society of Health Communication and vice president at NORC at the University of Chicago. “This inaugural special issue seeks to generate thoughtful consideration of theory and evidence building as complex, messy, and yet still able to generate improvements in health communication practice. Thank you to all those who submitted their work for consideration, the published authors, and our Special Issue editorial team.”
Online access to the Journal, including this special issue, is available at a significantly reduced cost, with more information available at SocietyforHealthCommunication/JournalPartnership. The second special issue call for papers, “Getting Creative: Engaging Communities through Innovative Communication Approaches,” will be open for submissions by the end of April.
Society for Health Communication and Journal of Health Communication Partnership
In 2024 the Society for Health Communication and the Journal of Health Communication forged a partnership, with the Journal becoming an official publication of the Society. The goals of the partnership are to increase the field’s access to critical health communication research, science, and practice learnings, create new publication opportunities, and advance public health. The partnership includes individual Society member online access to the Journal at a significantly reduced cost; development of an annual special issue of the Journal, offering new opportunities for health communicators to publish their research and findings; and the Journal serves as a premiere sponsor of the Society’s National Summit for Health Communication, an in-person and online annual event that provides cross-sector communication professionals a forum to share innovative ideas and new approaches, expand their skills through educational sessions, and ability to network with leaders in the field.
About the Society for Health Communication
The Society for Health Communication is a nonprofit organization bringing together health communication professionals and scholars to create meaningful connections, share knowledge, and exchange best practices across disciplines, and advance the science of health communication. Since its founding in 2016, the Society has grown to more than 5,500 individual members and 30 organizational members, representing academia, government, nonprofits and the private sector, connected in their mission to help foster trust in science, dependence on clarity, and the pursuit of health equity. We’re not just an organization; we’re a movement. To learn more, become a member, or donate, visit www.hcsociety.org and follow along on LinkedIn @Society-for-Health-Communication.
About the Journal of Health Communication: International Perspectives
The Journal of Health Communication: International Perspectives publishes research on the communication of health information globally and developments in the field of health communication. It is the leading journal covering the full breadth of the global health communications field. The Journal seeks to advance a synergistic relationship between research and practical information. With a focus on promoting the health literacy of the individual, caregiver, provider, community, and those in health policy, the Journal presents research, progress in areas of technology and public health, ethics, politics and policy, and the application of health communication principles. Established in 1996, the Journal is published by Taylor & Francis.
About CUNY SPH
The CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) is committed to promoting and sustaining healthier populations in New York City and around the world through excellence in education, research, and service in public health and by advocating for sound policy and practice to advance social justice and improve health outcomes for all.
Media Contact: dbrodalski@societyforhealthcomm.org
