Annual Symposia

Each year, the Penn Medical Communication Research Institute organizes an annual symposium with researchers across the University of Pennsylvania and outside institutions addressing the state of the field in medial communication, strategies to implement effective delivery of health information, and approaches to improve health literacy. Additionally, the symposium tackles timely issues in medicine and public health, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and reproductive healthcare. 

The inaugural symposium, "Preventing Medical Misinformation: Cross-Disciplinary Approaches" was held in October 2021 and covered topics in technology and information delivery, social networks and behavior change, and medical communication and message delivery. The second annual symposium on "Medical Communication in Women’s Reproductive Health: The Message and the Messenger" was held in October 2022 and addressed issues related to reproductive healthcare messaging including contraception and abortion, the linguistics of reproductive healthcare terms, and strategies for effective communication by healthcare providers.