Interactive health communication in preventive medicine: internet-based strategies in teaching and research.

Interactive health communication using Internet technologies is expanding the range and flexibility of intervention and teaching options available in preventive medicine and the health sciences. Advantages of interactive health communication include the enhanced convenience, novelty, and appeal of computer-mediated communication; its flexibility and interactivity; and automated processing. We outline some of these fundamental aspects of computer-mediated communication as it applies to preventive medicine. Further, a number of key pathways of information technology evolution are creating new opportunities for the delivery of professional education in preventive medicine and other health domains, as well as for delivering automated, self-instructional health behavior-change programs through the Internet. We briefly describe several of these key evolutionary pathways. We describe some examples from work we have done in Australia. These demonstrate how we have creatively responded to the challenges of these new "information environments," and how they may be pursued in the education of preventive medicine and other health care practitioners and in the development and delivery of health behavior-change programs through the Internet. Innovative and thoughtful applications of this new technology can increase the consistency, reliability, and quality of information delivered.