Course overview
Digital health promotion can extend the reach of public health campaigns, service information and behaviour-change support, but poor design can exclude people with low digital access, spread unverified claims, misuse personal data or produce engagement metrics with little health value. Public health teams need practical methods for selecting channels, designing accessible content, protecting privacy, linking people to services and showing whether digital activity contributes to measurable outcomes.
This course develops the skills required to plan, deliver and evaluate digital health promotion initiatives using websites, SMS, mobile applications, social media and online communities. Participants use COM-B, the Behaviour Change Wheel, BCT Taxonomy v1, logic models, RE-AIM and practical measurement frameworks to turn population health priorities into focused digital interventions. The course covers audience research, behavioural design, health literacy, accessibility, platform selection, content governance, data protection, social listening, misinformation response, implementation and continuous improvement.
Teaching combines short technical briefings with case work from public health, primary care, health insurance, NGOs and community health programmes. Participants analyse realistic campaign decisions, develop campaign components in groups and apply each method to a work-related priority. By the end of the course, each participant has produced and presented a complete digital health promotion campaign portfolio containing an audience profile, behaviour-change approach, channel plan, accessible content sample, governance controls, measurement framework and implementation plan.
The course suits professionals responsible for public health communications, health promotion, patient engagement, community outreach, digital programme delivery or health service improvement. It is particularly relevant where teams need to improve uptake of prevention services, screening, vaccination, self-management support, mental health resources or referral pathways.
