Like many Americans, I closely followed the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise known as the “Economic Stimulus Plan.” As a public health professional, I am keenly interested in the parts of the stimulus bill that promote health, such as the Prevention and Wellness Fund, which Jeanne Lambert wrote about as a “Wellness Trust” long before she was Deputy Director of the White House Office of Health Reform.

As a health marketer, one area that caught my attention was the $7.2 billion to extend broadband internet access to more Americans, particularly those living in underserved and rural communities. As reported in USA Today, recent surveys by the Pew Internet & American Life Project have found that only 57% of Americans subscribe to broadband at home, while 9% rely on dial-up service. Some people use the internet in public places like the library, while close to 25% of Americans don’t use the internet at all. The USA Today article goes on to say, “These holdouts are the hardest to reach. They include many poor and elderly people, as well as residents of rural areas that the big broadband providers have abandoned as too costly to serve - an issue that Congress is trying to address.”

Public health has recognized internet access as an issue for some time. Healthy People 2010, for example, includes an objective to increase the proportion of households with internet access to 80%. The mid-course review of Healthy People progress notes that “internet access is critical to disease prevention, health promotion, and health care because of the increasing amount of information and services available via the internet. When internet access is not universal, some segments of the population are excluded from knowing about and therefore using many new tools and information sources; the result is additional disparities.”

With more Americans able to access the internet in more places, we can certainly expect to see an increase in the number of people using electronic media to research and share health information. The public’s increasing use of social media to inform health decisions, paired with the Obama Administration’s stated interest in promoting public health, preventive health care services, and preparedness, make it more important than ever for public health organizations to better use health marketing tools.

As regular readers of this blog already know, health marketing applies marketing techniques traditionally used to sell products to help “sell” health promotion and disease prevention by changing people’s behaviors. Marketers and advertisers have used these techniques for decades, but instead of selling goods such as soft drinks and appliances, those of us in health marketing are selling positive behavior change-like increased physical activity, smoking cessation, regular cancer screening, safer sex, and immunization-among many others.

Although the fields are growing, health communication and social marketing are still relatively new to public heath, and very different from the old approach of simply telling people what they should do to be healthy and then hoping they do it. We all know that we should get more physical activity and eat more vegetables, but just knowing this does not always translate into taking more trips to the gym or having salads for lunch. A health marketing approach harnesses the power of marketing science and public health behavioral theory to deliver health recommendations and guidance in ways that are more relevant and persuasive for people. In concrete terms, this means that as broadband internet access increases, and more people turn to the web for health information and support, we must leverage what we know works well, and continue to develop new ways to engage people in this online and often interactive environment.

At the heart of health marketing is a commitment to providing information where, when, and how people want to access and use it. The new information technologies that have proliferated on the internet in the last few years-internet blogs, social media such as Facebook and Twitter, mobile information delivery systems, podcasts, Wikis, as well as other new communication channels-are already being used by increasingly large segments of the U.S. population, and represent an exciting and fertile ground to deliver public health messages. Improving the performance of the internet through increased use of broadband will make these innovative technologies more effective and affordable for all Americans.

Another potential benefit of increasing broadband access is the ability of people to communicate with each other, especially in matters of health. For example, just recently (2/16/2009), the New York Times reported that Zagat, best known for its restaurant and hotel reviews, is rolling out a customer-driven Doctor’s Guide for people insured by Wellpoint. Research from the Annual Edelman Trust Barometer shows many people increasingly seek out health information from “people like myself,” and often value this information more than information from experts or other authoritative sources. It is critical for public health professionals to adapt to this changing environment and to use new communication vehicles to provide health information and guidance to people when they want it, where they want it, and in ways that make it easier for them to apply the information to their own lives. In doing so, we can make wellness and prevention relevant to people’s lives and easier for them to make the significant changes that will help keep themselves and their families healthier.

It is encouraging that the importance of increasing internet access and performance is gaining attention and resources because internet access and the role of social media in individual health decision-making will continue to expand in the coming years. Many of us in public health have begun to realize the potential of electronic health marketing, and now is the time for all of us in the field to fully embrace health marketing approaches in order to ensure that all people have access to the credible health information they need to make healthy decisions.