12:00
Online (zoom)
The SPHR Network for Health and risk communication for public health is excited to announce an upcoming lunchtime webinar series. The series will explore a range of topics across health and risk communication. The series is open to everyone. Please register below for the webinars you want to attend and you’ll be sent calendar invites for them with details about how to join.
Watch previous webinars on YouTube
Upcoming webinars
*All webinars are 12–1pm GMT unless otherwise stated*
Revisiting Berlo in the digital age: A pandemic-adapted model of health information re-sharing
Please note that this webinar has been postponed due to the speaker’s unavailability. Apologies for any inconvenience.
To stay updated, please still register using the form below, and we will notify you as soon as the rescheduled session is announced.
Date: was scheduled for Wednesday 17th June 2026, 12–1pm but now POSTPONED
Speaker: Nancy El-Shayeb
This webinar presents findings from a multi-method PhD project examining factors associated with health information re-sharing on social media during COVID-19. Conceptualising re-sharing as an outcome of the communication process, the research adapts David Berlo’s communication model to reflect contemporary social media environments. The session will outline key factors identified across studies, discuss implications for public health communication and infodemic management, and highlight suggestions for future research in this area. Register your interest to attend on a revised date
Previous webinars
Watch previous webinars on YouTube
Generative AI for health promotion and behaviour change campaigns
Date: Wednesday 1st July 2026, 2.30–3.30pm
Speaker: Dr Marco Bardus
This webinar introduces how generative AI tools can support the development of health promotion and behaviour change campaigns, from rapidly generating audience insights to creating tailored messages and creative concepts. Dr Bardus will highlight practical opportunities alongside emerging risks, including bias, misinformation, and ethical considerations. Watch webinar
Conceptualising and detecting information voids in relation to weather-related disasters: Survey findings from the EU & USA
Date: Wednesday, 3rd June 2026
Speaker: Dr Santosh Vijaykumar
Information voids have been anecdotally identified as a precursor to outbreaks of misinformation during health and climate crises, but remain empirically untested. Understanding the public’s information needs and identifying gaps are critical if disaster risk communication is to preserve lives and livelihoods during climate emergencies. This seminar presents findings from a paper that conceptualises and tests a novel survey tool designed to detect information voids across four key dimensions: information quantity, quality, source, and channel. Survey findings (total N = 897) from Belgium, Germany, Poland, and the USA reveal the potential of our tool to generate rapid evidence on information gaps and deliver detailed, actionable insights to improve disaster communication during emergencies across various regions. Watch webinar
Generative AI and health information seeking
Date: Wednesday 18th March 2026
Speaker: Dr Marco Bardus
This webinar will explore how tools such as ChatGPT and other generative AI systems are transforming the ways people search for and interpret health information. While these technologies can increase accessibility and make complex topics easier to understand, they also pose significant risks, including the spread of inaccurate or outdated information, overconfidence in AI‑generated advice, and difficulty for users in distinguishing credible content from confident‑sounding errors. Watch webinar
Communicating risk about physical health in psychosis: Insights from young people, carers, and health professionals
Date: Wednesday, 22nd April 2026
Speaker: Miss Karla Hitchins
There is limited understanding of how best to communicate physical health risks in ways that are both sensitive and motivating for behaviour change in young people with experience of psychosis. This talk will share key insights from focus groups that explored physical health risk communication from the perspectives of young people with experience of psychosis, carers and health professionals. Watch webinar
Barrier, bridge or ‘alphabet soup’? Exploring equitable healthcare through the lens of multilingualism
Date: Wednesday 29th April 2026
Speaker: Emma Brooks This session draws on ethnographic observations of medical consultations in a London hospital and the everyday experiences of multilingual NHS professionals. It explores how language concordant care appears to increase patients’ confidence, understanding and wellbeing. This is important, as migrant patients are disproportionately represented in figures recording adverse outcomes: any improvement in comprehension and agency is to be welcomed. At the same time, without an overview of a professional’s proficiency levels, there is also a risk that an attempt to use a shared language could inadvertently complexify interaction and compromise processes of consent. Watch webinar
What might we mean when we say “Jab”, “Shot”, and “Side Effects” in relation to vaccinations? Informing public health information with evidence from peer-to-peer vaccination discussions
Date: Wednesday 6th May 2026
Speakers: Zsófia Demjén and Elena Semino
Public attitudes toward vaccination are not just hidden in uptake rates and survey responses; insights can also be gained by paying close attention to the everyday language people use when discussing vaccines with one another. This webinar presents selected findings from the recently completed, ESRC-funded, Questioning Vaccination Discourses (Quo Vadis) project, demonstrating how seemingly simple terms such as “jab”, “shot”, and “side-effects” reflect and shape perceptions of vaccine effectiveness and safety. Using the quantitative and qualitative tools of corpus linguistics to examine millions of posts across three social media platforms (Mumsnet, reddit and Twitter/X), we discuss how “jab” and “shot” started to be used during the COVID 19 pandemic to contrast vaccines with each other, often implying that some were inferior, and how the overwhelmingly vague or ambiguous ways in which “side-effects” are discussed creates space for individual readers to project their own concerns into what they are reading online. We reflect on what these kinds of insights might mean for the language used in public health information and campaigns. Watch webinar
Reconceptualising eHealth Literacy: Skills for the present and future of digital Health ecosystems
Date: Wednesday, 20th May 2026 (at 14:00–15:00 GMT+0)
Speaker: Comfort Sanuade
Digital or eHealth literacy is a key determinant of health in many contexts and domains. Originally defined by Norman and Skinner (2006) as “the ability to seek, find, understand, and appraise health information from electronic sources and apply the knowledge gained to addressing or solving a health problem”, the concept reflected a time when digital resources were largely limited to static websites. But today’s digital health landscape, shaped by apps, wearables, AI tools, interactive platforms, and data-rich environments, demands a more contemporary understanding.
This webinar presents conceptual work from Comfort’s PhD project to refine and update the definition of eHealth literacy. The session will summarise results from a Delphi study used to develop a clearer, more comprehensive framework. The refined definition aims to guide future research and support the design of digital health interventions that better match users’ real-world capabilities. Watch webinar
Date: Wednesday 30th April 2025
Title: Influencers in Health Communication: Insights from Diabetes Narratives and a Digital Anti-Stigma Intervention
Speaker: Dr Zhaozhang Sun
How can social media influencers help shape public perceptions of diabetes—and what does it take to design an effective digital intervention? In this webinar, Dr Sun will share key findings from her PhD research, which examined how social media influencers in the UK communicate about diabetes and influence public knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours. Building on these insights, she will introduce her current ESRC-funded fellowship project, which focuses on the design, implementation, and evaluation of a social media campaign aimed at improving communication around Type 2 Diabetes.
Date: Wednesday 7th May 2025
Title: Explaining Osteoarthritis Well. What are the next steps for health communication research?
Speaker: Prof Clare Jinks
This webinar will highlight the Osteoarthritis impairment discourse and outline research undertaken to support Osteoarthritis self-management, including co-design of new innovations to help explain Osteoarthritis well. Details of an international initiative to Change the Osteoarthritis narrative (COAN) will be shared before discussing potential next steps for Osteoarthritis public health communication research.
Date: Wednesday 28th May 2025
Title: Visual art in health communication
Speaker: Dr Marek Palace
Visual art can play a powerful role in health communication by making complex health messages more engaging, accessible, and emotionally resonant. In this webinar, Dr Marek Palace will bring examples from his research on visual campaigns and counter-narratives with relevance to security, crime reduction, well-being and health.
Date: Wednesday 18th June 2025
Title: Risk Communication and Community Engagement
Speaker: Dr Marco Bardus
This webinar explores the critical role of Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) in responding to public health threats. Drawing on experiences from global health emergencies and research in emergency settings, the session will highlight strategies for effectively communicating risks, building trust, and engaging communities in meaningful dialogue and action. Participants will gain insights into evidence-based approaches to RCCE, with a focus on equity, inclusivity, and cultural relevance.
Date: Wednesday, 24th September 2025
Title: ‘Health Halo’: Misleading Health Communication
Speaker: Prof Emma Boyland
This webinar will explore how the food industry uses misleading health communication to influence food-related beliefs and behaviours. Prof Boyland will share insights from her research and knowledge translation activities, with relevance to improving public health communication and outcomes through policy and advocacy. Watch on YouTube
Date: Wednesday, 8th October 2025
Title: The commercial determinants of health information
Speaker: Dr Nason Maani
This webinar will examine how commercial interests shape the production, dissemination, and reception of health information. Dr Maani will explore the influence of corporate actors on public understanding of health risks, drawing on examples across a range of sectors. The session will highlight implications for public health research and policy. Watch on YouTube
Date: Wednesday 15th October 2025
Title: Media Relations for Effective Health Communication
Speaker: Dr Marco Bardus
This webinar will explore the strategic use of media relations in public health communication. With his background as freelance journalist and public relations, Dr Bardus, will share insights from his professional experience on how to engage journalists, frame health messages, and navigate media ecosystems to amplify public health campaigns. The session will highlight practical approaches to building media partnerships and enhancing message credibility and reach. Watch on YouTube
Date: Wednesday, 19th November 2025
Title: Sport and public health: Exploring the ability for sport to be both a force for public health and also to damage our health
Speaker: Dr Robin Ireland
Whilst sport can be a force for public good, this session will explore how, in recent years, industries such as energy drinks and fast food, gambling, and alcohol have found sport a fertile arena in which to communicate their brands via global television and social media channels. What are the implications as we seek to regulate the impact of unhealthy advertising? In this webinar, Dr Ireland will critically examine the dual role of sport in public health, highlighting its potential to promote physical activity and wellbeing, while discussing ideas for regulating unhealthy advertising in sport to better protect population health. Watch on YouTube
Date: Wednesday, 26th November 2025
Title: Strategies to Communicate the Risk of Air Pollution Exposure to Vulnerable Groups
Speaker: Dr Clare Tolley
This presentation will share findings from a large qualitative study involving 50 participants from diverse vulnerable groups. Dr Tolley will explore what information individuals want about raised air pollution levels, and when, where, and how they prefer to receive it, offering practical guidance for inclusive risk communication. Watch on YouTube
Date: Wednesday, 17th December 2025 2–3pm
Title: Outdoor Advertising
Speaker: Mr Scott Lloyd
This webinar will examine the role of outdoor advertising and media relations in shaping public health messages. Mr Lloyd will present case studies and strategic approaches to leveraging media channels for impactful health communication, with a focus on audience engagement and message framing. Watch on YouTube
Date: Wednesday, 18th February 2026 (at 15:00–16:00 GMT+0)
Title: AI and digital media for social and behavioural change
Speaker: Prof W. Douglas Evans
AI and digital media are powerful tools for social and behavioural change. In particular, they can be used to create social and health-behavioural brand and program identities. This presentation focuses on the use of AI and digital media platforms for behavioural interventions, with specific examples drawn from nicotine and tobacco control, substance use prevention, and vaccination. We examine the evidence, state of the field, and future directions in behavioural research using AI and digital technologies. Watch on YouTube