Images in health care: Potential and problems

Although communication issues within health care have received greater research and policy attention in recent years, one growing aspect of such communication has been largely overlooked. In this paper we suggest that visual forms of communication, at both the individual and population level, are increasingly used and relied upon. This seems appropriate given a general shift towards a more visual and visually literate society, and the potential of images to convey complex information and influence both beliefs and emotion. However, we also argue that the widespread use of such a potentially powerful tool necessitates a solid evidence base that is currently lacking. Such a lack leaves image-based interventions at best potentially ineffective and at worst harmful. We examine the reasons for the paucity of research in this area and suggest that in fact a multitude of supportive research and theory exists but that at present it is spread across a range of academic fields with little interdisciplinary dialogue. Given the current desire to see increased inter- and multidisciplinary dialogue and the acceptance of the need for theoretical and empirical underpinnings for complex interventions, it would seem that there may now be both the will and the way forward to forge new collaborations, integrate such theories and develop a more sophisticated evidence base to support the growing use of images in health care settings.