Phase I Report
Recommendations for the Framework and Format of Healthy People 2020

Appendix 15.
Health IT and Health Communication in Healthy People 2020

Potential Impact on Determinants of Health and Disease

Health communication and health information technology have the potential to affect the determinants of health and can address health disparities and improving health outcomes. Some examples follow:

• Social Environment. Sophisticated social marketing plus social networking tools and processes can make it possible to mitigate the negative effects of health disparities and support digital social environments to monitor and advance the nation's health.
• Social Inequalities. Differences among social classes (education level, SES) exist in the generation, manipulation, and distribution of health information at the group level and in access to and ability to take advantage of health information at the individual level. These communication inequalities can be addressed through initiatives such as assurance of the quality and understandability of information delivered through digital media, having universal access to cable and mobile communication networks, and improving the design and implementation of health promotion programs for these and other population groups.
• Physical Environment. Global positioning systems and other technologies can help monitor, collect, and synthesize data from across the country, ensuring that the nation's physical environment is healthy and safe.
• Health Services. The quality of health services could be enhanced by well-designed health information technologies and evidence-based health communication principles. For example, effective health care can be extended to the traditionally underserved by adopting and linking electronic health records, personal health records, telemedicine, and remote monitoring; and by incorporating health literacy principles into patient-provider and provider-provider communication that use these technologies.
• Individual Behavior. Every American could be supported with personalized, trusted health guidance when and where they need it via an optimal utilization of HIT and evidence-based health literacy principles.
• Biology and Genetics. Health information technologies of the 21st century coupled with contemporary health risk communication principles can harness personal biomedical and genetic profiles for timely personalized guidance, population health research, and enhanced information on health risks and benefits.

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Last revised: December 11, 2008