Editors' Introduction, Ehealth and Health Promotion

Communication is the central social process used to deliver health care and promote public health. Ehealth applications, the use of new information technologies in health care and health promotion, have developed as new tools for communicating with diverse audiences of health care consumers and providers. The growth of ehealth tools has spurred an information revolution within the modern health care system that holds tremendous promise for enhancing the delivery of care and the promotion of health (Neuhauser & Kreps, 2010). Yet, there is much to learn about the best ways to design and implement health information technologies. The development, adoption, and implementation of a broad range of new ehealth applications, such as health information websites, online social support networks, interactive electronic health records, health decision support systems, tailored health education programs, health care system web portals, mobile health communication devices, and advanced telehealth applications, all promise to increase consumer and provider access to relevant health information, enhance the quality of care, reduce health care errors, increase collaboration, and encourage the adoption of healthy behaviors. However, with the growth of new and exciting HIT opportunities comes the daunting responsibility to design eHealth tools that communicate effectively with a diverse array of health care consumers, providers, and policy makers. These tools must be designed to effectively communicate the right information needed by different audiences at the right time, in the right place, and in the best ways to guide health care and health promotion. Evidence suggests that ehealth tools should be interactive, interoperable, easy to use, engaging, adaptable, and accessible for diverse audiences (Neuhauser & Kreps, 2010). This special issue of the Journal of Computer Mediated Communication examines the strategic use of ehealth applications to enhance the promotion of health. The ehealth interventions examined in this special issue are designed for diverse and vulnerable groups of health care consumers (such as patients coping with chronic health care problems, consumers who have low levels of health literacy, and members of marginalized populations who suffer from disparities in health outcomes), health care providers (both formal health professionals and informal caregivers/advocates), as well as health care system administrators and health policy makers. The special issue begins with an important case study by Ginossar and Nelson describing a community-based e-health intervention to increase knowledge and self-efficacy for low-income Hispanic parents coping with their young children's