Discussion—Addressing Ethical Issues

There is a barrage of health communication directed towards the American public by professionals, businesses, consumer groups, and governmental agencies of all levels. Ethical lapses in these health communications can result in significant legal issues and provide ineffective or even harmful information. In this discussion assignment, you will provide recommendations on how the communications provider can limit and manage ethical issues.
The readings for this module include ethical considerations for the practice of health communication. Using these readings, the Argosy University online library resources, and the Internet, respond to the following.
•    Select an example of an ethical concern related to public relations, the professional medical community, or constituency relations.
•    Examine strategies to prevent or reduce this concern.
Support your statements with examples and scholarly references.
Write your initial response in 1–2 paragraphs. Apply APA standards to citation of sources.
By Friday, February 7, 2014, post your response to the appropriate Discussion Area. Through Wednesday, February 12, 2014, review and comment on at least two peers’ responses.
Assignment 1 Grading Criteria     Maximum Points
Analyzed an ethical concern related to public relations, the professional medical community, or constituency relations, providing a thorough explanation of strategies to prevent or reduce the concern.    12
Actively contributed to the discussion by providing points of view with rationale, challenging points of the discussion, or drawing relationships between points of the discussion.    12
Wrote in a clear, concise, and organized manner; demonstrated ethical scholarship in accurate representation and attribution of sources; displayed accurate spelling, grammar, and punctuation.    4
Total:    28

Module 6 Readings and Assignments
Complete the following readings early in the module:
•    Read the overview for Module 6
•    From the textbook, Health communication: From theory to practice, read the following chapters:
o    Public relations and public advocacy
o    Professional medical communications
o    Constituency relations in health communication
Assignment Summary: Module 6    Due Date
Assignment 1: Discussion—Addressing Ethical Issues    Friday, February 7, 2014
Assignment

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Module 6 Overview (2 of 3)

Health communication occurs within a complex environment, and in this module, you will take a look at how to anticipate and shape this environment.
Forces in the environment can be positive or negative and be based in social, political, professional, regulatory, and business constituencies. Health behaviors and health literacy are imbedded in the social environment and are influenced by how we receive information about health issues from communication media.
Teenage pregnancy and related topics of birth control and abortion are examples of health issues made complex by conflicting information received through technology, families, institutions and nonprofit organizations such as Planned Parenthood, schools, and state health departments. Health professionals focusing on teenage pregnancies will need a savvy and sophisticated campaign that has strategies directed at this complex environment.

Health behaviors and knowledge are unconsciously learned, habitual, and not routinely examined. Often, health behavior is unconsciously copied from others in the immediate social context. A health education program is generally concerned about getting people to abandon current assumptions and apply new knowledge to a deeply engrained lifestyle. The program not only imparts new information and skills to the target audience but also challenges personal beliefs, values, and lifestyles reinforced by families, communities, government, and a variety of institutions with vested philanthropic and business interests in health. This dual goal of unlearning old behaviors and learning new behaviors requires the audience to adapt considerably on a personal level and makes your work more challenging.
These environmental forces can also be a part of the solution. Constituencies or stakeholders are not necessarily the target audience but they lend support or provide contradictory information on the health issue. For example, changing children’s health literacy starts with the parents who carry the health message to the family. Important communication strategies used to influence these external groups include the broad area of public relations and direct communications with the medical community.
Many public health issues are controversial and a health communications campaign will be challenged by groups with different and, sometimes, deliberately misleading messages. For every social marketing effort, there are contradictory public relations efforts underway to discredit and challenge its validity.
This module introduces the tools used to influence and engage supportive stakeholders and also how to anticipate and weaken threats from groups opposed to the health communication message.
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