Internet health promotion: Designing guidelines

Abstract

The aim of this research was to investigate the factors which facilitate the communication of health promotion on the Internet and to produce guidelines for developing web pages for health promotion. Health communication in general is a growing field, however there appears to be limited infom1ation in the literature on how the factors of communication on the Internet (such as sender, message, channel, medium, receiver and their subsets), can be incorporated into the design of an Internet health promotion intervention. Draft guidelines were developed from a critical analysis of the literature. These draft guidelines were used in the production and evaluation of Internet web pages on the Australian Indigenous HealthbifoNet website. The subject of these pages was Indigenous women\u27s health. The pages were evaluated by incorporating an online questionnaire. Health professionals, a subset of the Australian Indigenous HealthbifoNet\u27s audience, were specifically targeted for their responses as they have expertise in utilising information to improve health. A descriptive analysis of the responses to the on-line instrument was compiled. Information accumulated during the process of developing the web pages and from the analysis of the questionnaire was used to produce a more rigorous set of guidelines. This research was significant as the guidelines provide a framework for the planning, implementation and evaluation of an Internet health promotion intervention. The guidelines can provide a starting point for future development of web pages for the Australian Indigenous HealthbifoNet and for others developing similar health promotion web pages. The guidelines will be made available for others to use as a tool for more effectively disseminating health promotion messages on the Internet