By Helen Yan, Senior Account Director, Health, Edelman China

We have entered an era where the consumer is not just the patient, or the parent, or the caregiver; the consumer is the information evangelist, advocate, networker, and knowledge seeker. The consumer searches the Internet, speaks with friends and colleagues as well as doctors to learn about possible causes, diagnoses, treatments, side effects and reoccurrences of medical conditions, at all stages of medical treatment. She is a blogger, an active participant of message boards on Sohu Health, a person who today takes health matters directly into her own hands.

Active consumers are joining together online and off, leading to a growing chorus of peer forums such as real world support groups and online communities. As consumers navigate between these various voices, they increasingly lend more credence to the ones that sound most like their own.

These “people like me,” as described by Edelman’s 2008 Trust Barometer study, rank high among thought leaders around the world as one of the most trustworthy spokespeople. And more and more, the circle of “people like me” isn’t confined to local, face-to-face interactions with neighborhood people, but is expanding to include online entities – faceless people in far-flung places who share their collective wisdom on Internet message boards, blogs, chat rooms, and BBS.

According to the 2007 Edelman Asian Stakeholder study, web-based media has become the most credible source of information among Chinese people – surpassing TV – with users’ trust growing dramatically at more than 150 percent. With mainland Chinese online-users blogging at the highest rate out of all ten major markets in Asia covered by the Edelman study, the legitimacy of web-based media only continues to grow. Meanwhile, as consumers become more sophisticated and demanding of information sources, trust in traditional media has fallen – by 45 percent in Mainland China compared to the previous year.

While the Stakeholder study found that traditional institutions such as government and businesses remain key sources of information, trends in information consumption patterns of Chinese people (along with markets all around the world) point to an increasing need for PR to diversify its approach beyond traditional, one-way media.

As consumers seek health knowledge from a wider array of sources, PR is uniquely positioned to provide accurate, relevant information through ever-multiplying communication channels and with an ever-multiplying number of stakeholders, who easier to interact with – inform, educate, and learn from – now more than ever. Indeed, among the growing sources of health information, professionals in the health industry – from personal doctors to specialists, to experts on TV and in magazines – remain the most trustworthy among consumers, according to the Trust Barometer study. So, with these specialists entrance online, they are uniquely positioned to provide guidance to those yearning and needing important medical information; PR can connect large communities of health-active users with these health professionals – and more of the sources of information they find most credible and trustworthy.

"Health-active" users take a more proactive approach to their own health, and to reach these users, PR must learn to engage them proactively in the same manner, and along the same channels on which they are increasingly communicating. Online media provides health PR the opportunity to engage users as never before, not only connecting them to a greater number of more accurate sources of health information, but increasing and improving the dialogue about health – via interactive and personal media such as blogs, forums, and podcasts.

When doing health PR – that is, building relationships with publics –era of interactive information also necessitates gaining more trust. By transparently bringing users closer to the information they seek, PR facilitates greater understanding of health on stakeholders’ own realm - on blogs and forums – as opposed to top-down, ad-driven messages, which have diminishing credibility among users who are able to find and compare health information from a wide array of sources.

But greater access to information doesn’t only benefit stakeholders; the potential for more feedback via online media allows PR the opportunity to understand the effect and impact of health information on online communities and the users they represent. By listening to stakeholders on the web, companies can fine tune their message – and their products – to better suit consumers’ health needs.