Infographics: Healthcare Communication for the Digital Age

The concept of presenting information in graphical format is not new. A number of early examples of data visualisation exist from the eighteenth century; most notably the depiction of the deck layout of the British slave ship Brookes in 17882. This information poster (see figure 1) depicted views of the reprehensible living conditions suffered by slaves during their voyage to the colonies and was reproduced countless times by the abolitionist movement in Georgian Britain. The combination of text, images, and narrative arguably make this an early predecessor of the modern charticle, which is a type of infographic discussed later in this article.