To fill a growing need in healthcare professions and respond to increasing student demand, SC&I will launch a new Master of Health Communication & Information (MHCI) degree in January 2021. 

Students will learn about the communication, information, and media aspects of health-related policies and practices. Classes will explore the critical systems and interactions that support wellness in interpersonal, community, organizational, and public settings.

Students will receive instruction in the development of health-related communication and the effective use of media and information in patient-provider interactions; goals and strategies of health care promotion; relationships, roles, situations, and social structures in the context of health maintenance; designing and leading organizational and informational structures to manage health provision; applications for disease prevention and crisis communication preparedness; health advocacy; and creation, storage, retrieval, and management of information resources in the service of the health professions. 

The degree will provide students will the skills needed to develop, organize, coordinate, manage, and deliver high-quality healthcare programs. Additionally, students will learn how to contribute to the evolution and development of healthcare campaigns and interventions.

Graduates will be prepared to launch careers in a hospital or medical practices, non-profit advocacy or voluntary organizations; educational institutions; health-related advertising, public relations, marketing, or consulting agencies; federal government; or state and local government. 

Students who successfully complete the program will be prepared to:

• Design, implement and evaluate health communication strategies and programs
• Evaluate the power and limits of communication, information, technology, and media to influence personal and community health and wellness
• Analyze the relationships among communication, information, technology, and media to personal and public health/wellness  
• Develop evidence-based designs to address health issues of target populations 
• Design and lead organizational structures to support new communication and information needs in relation to treatment and prevention 
• Plan and conduct behavioral analysis in the context of patient and providers 
• Examine complex health-related problems regarding data, information, and knowledge 
• Employ ethical practices in health communication research, health-related practices and policies, the design of health information systems, and the creation of health-related content 
• Apply health communication and information strategies and programs in real-world contexts 

Based at SC&I, the new MHCI degree program will be nested within an exceptionally rich set of environments for health professions and health scholarship including Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Rutgers Biological and Health Sciences, the RWJ Barnabas Health System, New Jersey’s high density of health, health technology, and pharmaceutical industries, as well as those in the tri-state area. 

“With the launch of our new Master of Health Communication and Information degree in January 2021, I can’t think of a better time to enter this critical market as we realize how vital the role of communication and information is for public health,” said Richard Dool, DMgt, Director of the MCHI and Master of Communication and Media (MCM) Programs.

In addition to being offered to college graduates, the new degree will also be offered as a 4+1 Dual Degree available to Rutgers University undergraduates. The dual degree plan encourages our most talented undergraduate students to pursue a graduate study at Rutgers by offering a seamless transition from undergraduate to graduate work, reducing the overall cost of earning the graduate degree (by 15%, according to our existing 4+1 degrees), and minimizing the time to complete the graduate degree. 

More information about the Master of Health Communication and Information is available on the Rutgers School of Communication and Information website.

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