Health Communication Minor

Analyze how the varied nature of health communication shapes everyday life and public opinion. Influence healthy behaviors through a variety of interpersonal, organizational, and mass communication contexts.

Two students sitting at a picnic table with a laptop.

Why Study Health Communication at Albion?

Communication is the key to disease prevention, health promotion, and behavior change. As a health communication minor, you’ll explore how communication strategies can aid in understanding and influencing outcomes in a variety of interpersonal, organizational, and mass communication contexts. 

You’ll study the origins of health communication and decision-making as it relates family, culture, access and resources, the environment, patient-provider communication, health care systems, health campaigns, and more.  Our courses equip you with a fundamental understanding of health communication that can compliment any major.

What Will You Learn as a Health Communication Minor?

At Albion, you’ll learn how to design messages to target specific audiences, investigate the factors behind why some people engage in risky health behaviors, evaluate examples of health campaigns and public service announcements about health and the environment, explore crisis communication, public relations, and how gain-loss framing affects decision-making.

You will study human communication and investigate communication theory related to health within the contexts of verbal communication, nonverbal communication, and mass communication - just to name a few.

You will learn about the preventable differences in health and engage in discussions and work that will promote ways in which we can reduce and eliminate the inequality experienced by so many due to their race, gender, age, religion, language, sexual orientation, mental and physical ability, socio-economic status, and geography.