This report, Speaking of Health: Assessing Health Communication Strategies for Diverse Populations, addresses the challenge of improving health communications in a racially and culturally diverse society. Although messages tailored to specific audiences can be effective, the report describes the difficulty and complexity of categorizing audiences.

Given the role that communication campaigns are likely to play in the coming years, the field of public health communication should be strengthened and should become more science based. This means supporting research that improves our understanding of the values/context that determine how information will be received, supporting evaluation of campaigns to determine their effectiveness, and a greater attention to the ethical and social concerns that must be appreciated and respected in the design of communications campaigns.