Health Communication: Lessons from Family Planning and Reproductive Health

Effective communication is the key to encouraging healthy behavior. Documenting a revolution in both theory and practice, Johns Hopkins University experts show that communication leads the way to healthy reproductive health and family planning behavior. They explain why communication makes so much difference and how communication programs can be made to work.

This book presents a compilation of lessons learned by the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs and its partners over 15 years of developing and implementing family planning communication projects campaigns in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Near East. An introductory essay provides an overview of family planning and communication worldwide and outlines the role of theory-based communication programs. The main part of the book presents lessons learned in the field about the process of designing and carrying out family planning communication projects. More than 60 lessons are presented, with descriptions and analysis of projects illustrating each lesson. A final essay explores the current and future challenges confronting family planning educators and other public health communicators.

PHYLLIS TILSON PIOTROW is Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Communications Programs and Principal Investigator, Population Communications Services Project and Population Information Program. She is also Senior Associate, Department of Population Dynamics in the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

D. LAWRENCE KINCAID is Associate Director for Research, Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs and Associate Scientist, Department of Health Policy and Management in the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

JOSE G. RIMON II is Project Director, Population Communication Services, deputy Director, Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, and Associate, Department of Population Dynamics in the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

WARD RINEHART is Project Director, Population Information Program, a project of the Center for Communication Programs at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. All have written extensively on reproductive health and family planning issues.