Originally posted on Campaign Asia.

For at least the last decade, the environment has taken center stage when it comes to issues in which consumers and employees think businesses need to take an active part. However, now it seems that the environment is not alone, and ‘health’ as an issue is just as important.

This is what we’ve found in Edelman’s second Health Engagement Barometer. Nearly three quarters (72 percent) of the 15,000 respondents to this survey said that they would trust a company more that is effectively engaged in health and two thirds (65 percent) would either recommend or buy products from these companies. While globally 65 percent say that sustainability is as much about the health of people as it is about the health of the planet, this figure was far higher in China (89 percent) and India (70 percent).

Now, I’ve planted my fair share of trees as part of a company’s environmental commitment over the years. Heck, I’ve organised these events myself. But I’m pleased, especially as we have a looming health crisis on our doorstep with an aging population and rise in chronic diseases, that the public is sending a clear message to business to get on board or pay the price.

Health Actionists

According to the study, which was conducted in 11 countries including China, India and Japan, respondents naturally cluster into various groups reflecting their own personal interests and involvement in health. The group that stood out in my mind was the group dubbed the Health Actionists. This group (roughly one sixth of respondents) is highly engaged and interested in health; and, unlike other segments, these people persuade others to take action. What’s more important for marketers to note is that 70 percent of this group is active in social media; 65 percent regularly use Google or other search engines; and almost half (49 percent) frequent consumer health web sites.

Marketing implications across Industries

Is this data only a message for the pharmaceutical industry and other healthcare companies? Well, no actually.

Sure, the pharmaceutical industry should sit up and listen – and for an industry typically shy of social media because of legal and regulatory issues, it’s refreshing to have a defined group of people who are proponents of spreading health information online. However, this research has a more far-reaching message that cuts across industries, but the expectations vary by industry.

So, what does this all really mean for marketers in the region?

For the food and beverage industry, people want to know the health risks of your products and services (51 percent) and they also think you have a role to play in educating the public on health topics related to your products and services (50 percent).

For the media and entertainment industry, you need to play a role in educating the public on health topics, as well as support the health of your local community.

The final question is: how are we doing? Well, not as well as you’d like to hope. A little over half (56 percent) said that in general, business is only doing a fair or poor job in this area, and only one third (36 percent) even trust business to fulfill its role in addressing health.

Hopefully companies will take lessons learnt from the environmental phenomenon and get on board early. Some clearly already have, but what surprises me is that many businesses have a market-by-market approach when it comes to health. However, consumers expect to see a consistent approach each time they interact with a company, and the respondents to the Health Engagement Barometer are saying that loud and clear.

There has been significant discussion in the last year about how digital and social media impact communication about health, especially how its impacts the role of both the public and companies in that industry. Knowing that these changes could affect those of us who spend our days communicating on behalf of health clients, Edelman’s Health practice has been focused on developing materials to educate ourselves and clients about how digital media impacts the traditionally regulated industry and its communication efforts. This includes a weekly post called the Health Digital Check-Up that is shared across our network and on EdelmanDigital.com.

As you can now see, Jessi Langsen and I decided to switch some things up this week – she took over the Check-Up that went up on Tuesday and discussed places you wouldn’t necessarily think to look for health online. So, for my side of the trade, I’m here to talk about the places where health gets talked about the most.

Even if you don’t work in the health PR space, this still matters to you. Research from Edelman’s Health Engagement Barometer indicated that 58 percent of global respondents relied on at least one digital source for health information. More importantly, health is becoming a topic about which every industry is expected to place a focus; it’s even being called the new “Green.” It’s worth it for everyone to be familiar with the common corners that conversations about health care can be found – for professional reason or personal ones.

Search Results

The most common way that a generally healthy person will interact with health information online is via a search inquiry. Pew data indicates that 2/3 of Internet users last went looking for health information in search engines. These users aren’t necessarily looking to find a diagnosis, but as the original Health Engagement Barometer found, 88 percent of people validate the information they find online with their doctor.

Health Information Sites

There are many sites around the world offering hundreds of articles on conditions, treatments, and symptoms for any information seeker to find. Depending on your region, you may be familiar with WebMD in North America, NetDoctor in the UK, the German Gesundheit, Australia’s ABC Health & Wellbeing, or your local counterpart. By way of their large databases, they are often are among the first search results on Bing or Google for health-related queries. These sites have gained much of their credibility by working with medical professionals and writers to build out their deep content reserves.

Physician-Only Networks

There has been an interesting discussion among doctors who are active online regarding how best to interact with patients in social media, if at all (for more on why, check out this article from the New England Journal of Medicine). Many connect to each other in private social networks, including the largest physician community online, Sermo.

Patient Communities

Among all of the online groups discussing health, there is one group with a different stake: people with chronic diseases or other medical conditions and their loved ones. These groups vary in size depending on each condition, but through rich topic-specific blog networks (especially around common conditions like diabetes) or disease-specific support groups on sites like Inspire, those who choose to interact online have the opportunity to easily make engagement an active part of their personal health care and advocacy.

The Networks You’re Already On

Given the integration of media and social networks, it probably isn’t surprising to find many organizations are slowly dipping their toes into the digital water by slowly building Twitter presences or Facebook pages. Next time you hear about a health news story, do a quick search on Twitter or Facebook. These networks seem to be used in varying ways in each region: as an interesting comparison, data from the Health Engagement Barometer showed that respondents in Asia were three times likelier to use Twitter to gain health information as their North American counterparts.

Today, Edelman is proud to launch its second Health Engagement Barometer. There is an incredible amount of information in the study gleaned from more than 15,000 respondents about the public’s relationship to and engagement in health. The data provide insights into the factors that motivate people to take better care of their health, as well as how companies, regardless of industry, can protect and propel their business through effective health engagement. ‘Health’ is joining ‘Green’ as a business strategy across industries.

Within the survey, an online questionnaire taken by participants in 11 different countries, Edelman’s research team at Strategy One asked some important questions about the sources people use to find health information. Among those questions was one of relevance to the Check-Up: “What digital information resources do you use to help you make decisions about your and your family’s health?”

Based on the responses, we’ve pulled out some fascinating numbers to share – and we of course encourage you to check out other insights from the study to get a full sense of what Edelman’s evaluated. What do you think about these global tendencies?

Digital Health Engagement…

When you start slicing the data from the thousands who took the survey across the globe, 58 percent reported that they use at least one digital resource for information about health. It is crucial to note that this number is a representative of the population that is active online. Regardless, it demonstrates that people are using a variety of ways to gather health information – from brand Web sites through social networking sites.

…but with Regional Differences

Globally, the number of people turning to social media channels for health information is a healthy majority. You could cut it by continent to see the diversity in different regions around the world when it comes to accessing online health resources: United States/Canada (37 percent) and Europe (50 percent) are still relatively well connected to health online, but Latin America (70 percent) and Asia (74 percent) are impressively above the global average for digital information seeking around health. Once again, the role of the online survey may be at play here, as Internet penetration in Brazil, China, Mexico and India is well below 50 percent of the population, so those taking the survey were predisposed to specific Internet usage around a topic like health.

A Tweet Divide

While Twitter does not seem to be a major resource that North Americans turn to for health information (only 4 percent of respondents across the U.S., Canada and Mexico noted using the status-based network), 12 percent in Asia reported using it for that need – a full eight points higher.

Search in Emerging Countries

Search engines have become an interesting source of both primary and secondary confirmation of health information in the last years. While sources like Google performed relatively well across the board, it’s worth calling out that nearly two-thirds of respondents in both Mexico and Brazil – 63 percent in each country – noted using this avenue when it comes to seeking health information. This represents an interesting advantage over their Western Hemisphere counterparts from Canada (55 percent) and the United States (41 percent). In the data, Mexico had a lot more in common with Brazil, as well as other emerging countries such as India and China, than its North American counterparts – enough to impact the region’s results across the data.

Still Trailing Traditional

As you go even further into the regions, there are a few other interesting statistics to note. While the data show that roughly 1 in 3 Americans are turning to social media sources for health information (31 percent), that’s less than half as many of the 64 percent who turn to traditional media sources. Digital health is growing in importance, but in the States, there are still plenty of other channels that are absolutely necessary to acknowledge.

There have been many different subtopics of online health communication discussed in the last few Health Digital Check-Ups. It’s somewhat daunting to digest it all, so before going even farther down the road with more about the specifics, we thought it may be a great time to refresh and just lay out the entire landscape.

Instead of walking through alone, though, we are going to enlist some help from one of the most iconic bands of American pop culture: Journey. Because everyone loves Journey, right?

So here’s a quick view of where we stand with the musical inspiration of Steve Perry. Let us know if we missed something.

Separate Ways

While it isn’t necessarily a catch-all for everyone who communicates about health, it’s sometimes easy to think about the space as holding three separate groups, and each has a very separate way of interacting on the online channel. The health space often feels limited to patients interacting with other patients about conditions or health status, healthcare professionals talking with their peers about news, and health companies dipping their toes in but reluctant to fully engage with the public.

I’ll Be Alright Without You

There are some pretty strong data points, most notably in Pew’s 2009 study on patients and health information, that consumers are often quenching their thirst for health knowledge at many places beyond a doctor’s office. Much of this is happening online: 60 percent of people who report looking online for health information (roughly 2/3 of American Internet users fall into this category) say that what they found on their own affected their decision about how to treat an illness or condition. It is not a complete transition, though: physicians still rank as most credible source, and as the Health Engagement Barometer showed, 88 percent of people validate the information they find online with their doctor.

Wheel in the Sky

In this metaphor, “the wheel in the sky that keeps turnin’” is the ever growing innovation of online technology. There are new communication platforms constantly appearing in the digital world, and with each new channel, it is our challenge not only to figure out how people may use them to communicate about health, but also the marketing regulations that are still yet to truly be defined. Google’s SideWiki made us rethink the idea of “ownership” of a Web site, and it had a unique impact on sites for pharmaceutical products. We don’t know where we’ll be tomorrow, but you can bet it’s going to keep health communicators on their toes.

Open Arms

If recent years of the e-patient movement are any indication, the growth of communities specifically focused on a condition or disease states is likely to continue. That means that understanding how to work with patients – and not try to talk at them – will be the key to success. We shouldn’t have anything to hide, and we need to believe what they say. After all, for these groups, it is their health; as communicators, we need to respect that.

Don’t Stop Believing

There are a few more things that need to be worked out in the realm of online health communication. There still is that divide between the different groups, making transparent engagement across parties a little bit of a challenge. However, it is absolutely plausible that this will not be this way forever. We will find a way to connect patients and the people who can help them the most with their health. Until then, just don’t stop believing.