Evidence-Based Health Communication in Practice

By Mike Mackert

One of the things that I most enjoy about working in health communication are those opportunities that allow for the translation of evidence-based research into actual practice.

As an example, the CHC has been working for several years with Texas WIC regarding how to better engage and retain WIC clients. It has involved a team of CHC affiliates and staff, and everyone on our side has thoroughly enjoyed working with the Texas WIC team. We’ve done everything ranging from audits of materials to conducting photovoice data collection with WIC moms to thinking about better processes Texas WIC could use to pretest and get client feedback during the process of materials development. The Texas WIC team was already doing a lot of great work in terms of communication, but throughout the process they’ve been thoughtful about how they might improve and clearly dedicated to doing the best work possible for Texas WIC clients.

As the CHC moves forward, I hope that we can continue doing more projects like this. It’s a great opportunity to translate the evidence-base of health communication into practice, and partnerships with agencies such as Texas WIC can help the CHC impact the health and wellbeing of people across the state of Texas. These kinds of projects can also provide the foundation for future research, which can contribute to the work of CHC faculty affiliates and students in building that evidence-base of health communication.

I’m sure we’ll share more news about these kinds of projects in the coming months, but I was thinking of this a lot today while doing work related to our Texas WIC partnership.