Principles for communicating with aging health-care consumers

The health-care marketplace is aging by leaps and bounds and bringing with it new and different medical needs. As costs soar and public assistance programs dwindle in impact, health-care providers will need better marketing strategies to bring treatments to patients/consumers. This article looks at the research findings of behavioral scientists and offers guidelines for effective communication with aging audiences. Health-care providers can use these findings to design more effective advertising, promotional brochures, newsletters, and a host of other communication tools targeted at an older market. Health-care managers and other professionals should find the guidelines useful in their daily interactions with patients and colleagues.