Dear HEC members,
Welcome to the IAMCR Health Communication Working Group newsletter for February 2026.
Happy new year to all our members, and we would like to take the opportunity to share some updates with you all as we welcome in the new year.
Thank you to so many of you who joined us in Singapore for IAMCR 2025 in June–July last year. We had another impressive turnout of delegates, particularly from Health Communication, many of whom made the journey to present papers, make connections, share ideas, and celebrate successes together.
We want to extend a huge thank you to all the presenters for sharing your research and ideas and hope to see many of you again in Galway this year for IAMCR 2026. Also extending our gratitude to many of you who volunteered your time as chairs and discussants for the Health Communication Working Group. It was also wonderful to see so many of our emerging scholars and student members playing an important role, and chairing sessions with such efficiency, too.
We enjoyed seeing many of you at the social event in Singapore as well, where we enjoyed amazing cuisine and karaoke that Singapore is famous for–and look forward to more socialising opportunities with you in Galway.
IAMCR 2026, Galway
This year’s IAMCR 2026 conference will be held in Galway (28 June–2 July), hosted by the University of Galway. The deadline for submission is days away–3 February 2026 at 23:59 UTC. We look forward to receiving your abstracts. You can also propose a panel session. We’re eager to bring together an inspiring event that interrogates health communication in the context of Peripheries and Connections: Media, Communication and Transformation.
HEC joint session, special panels and book launches
HEC welcomes special panel submissions and book launches. For the joint session with the Health Communication Working Group (HEC), please submit your abstract to PCR and choose the topic HEC/PCR joint session on the submission platform.
Call for reviewers! IAMCR 2026 conference abstracts
We will be emailing some of you a request to be listed as reviewers for this year’s IAMCR conference in Galway. Each year, our co-chairs and co-vice chairs take on an exhaustive list of abstracts to review for the annual conference, and we call on our members (especially those intending to submit abstracts) to offer some support with this process. You can also sign up as a reviewer here.
For those already on our database, you will receive an email requesting your participation as a reviewer for conference submissions to IAMCR 2026. We will not add your name to our reviewers list unless you have indicated your consent to be involved. If you do end up receiving abstracts without having given your consent, please let us know immediately.
Upcoming conferences
The 2nd Health Communication in the MENA Region Symposium: AI, Risk Communication & Resilience hosted by The Health and Science Communication Research Group and The Research Institute of Social Sciences and Humanities University of Sharjah/Sharjah, United Arab Emirates 29–30 April 2026. Abstract submission: March 15, 2026, to healthmena26@gmail.com and cc tgorpe@sharjah.ac.ae.
For inquiries, please send your message to mawais@sharjah.ac.ae and salshaebi@sharjah.ac.ae.
Sincerely,
Eliza Govender, Sayyed Fawad Ali Shah, Monique Lewis, & Adebayo Fayoyin
On behalf of the IAMCR Health Communication Working Group (HEC)