The science of health communication: impressions from the International Conference on Communication in Healthcare in St Andrews, Scotland, UK

This special issue of Patient Education and Counseling contains a selection of the work presented at the conference organized by EACH. The selection of conference presentations for development for inclusion in a special issue of Patient Education & Counseling is always notoriously difficult, and the Scientific Committee was amply assisted by monitors from sessions and workshops. The collection of articles that features here was drawn from many of the diverse fields relating to communication that were represented in the parallel sessions at the conference. We are especially pleased to include contributions from two key-note speakers: namely Richard Street and Jan van Dalen