The persistent global burden of disease underscores the critical need for effective health promotion strategies, which fundamentally depend on clear, accessible, and persuasive science communication (1–4). A well-equipped healthcare workforce, competent in translating complex medical information for diverse public audiences, is a vital component of national health promotion capacity (5). In China, the science communication stands as a core component of the “Healthy China” strategy (6). Medical students, as future physicians and frontline health messengers, require specific training to move beyond clinical dialogue and engage in public-facing health communication. Their ability to communicate health science effectively directly influences public health by shaping community behaviors and collective well-being. Research suggests that education and training are vital methods for enhancing practical capacity in health promotion (7, 8).

Despite the high willingness to participate in science communication reported among university students (approximately 80–99.52%), a significant gap exists between intention and practice, with only 17–48% having actually engaged in medical science communication practice (9–11). 71.28% attribute their lack of participation to a perceived deficiency in their own science communication abilities. This highlights an urgent need for structured educational interventions.

The health communication course significantly improved social media competence and professionalism (12). While various approaches such as student clubs, campaign-based teams, or integration into clinical rotations have been explored in Chinese medical schools (13–16), a systematic and transferable pedagogical model focusing specifically on audience-tailored communication skills remains underdeveloped. The 2021 Outline of the National Action Plan for Scientific Literacy further explicitly requires higher education institutions to promote the development of science communication as a discipline. Moreover, 70.45% of survey respondents believe that medical schools should offer dedicated courses to enhance students’ science communication abilities (17).

Against this backdrop, Sun Yat-sen University launched the undergraduate elective course Fundamentals and Practice of Medical Science Communication in 2023. The course aims to systematically impart theoretical knowledge of medical science communication, strengthen practical skills, and foster a sense of responsibility. The teaching team has previously integrated methods such as the BOPPPS model, Outcome-Based Education, and ideological-political education into the curriculum, accumulating preliminary experience (18, 19). However, a medical science communication course demands not only knowledge transfer but also emphasizes the ability to translate knowledge, communication techniques, and public engagement skills, possessing a strong practical dimension. Therefore, there is a pressing need for a teaching model that can both solidify the theoretical foundation and effectively facilitate practical application.

Through two semesters of teaching practice and iteration, our team has gradually developed and refined the A-SPIRE teaching model. This model aims to provide a structured pathway from theoretical understanding to practical creation of tailored health messages. Grounded in experiential learning and constructivist theory, A-SPIRE comprises six iterative stages: Anchoring (setting context and motivation), Searching (active information gathering), Processing (organizing and interpreting information), Integrating (synthesizing knowledge for specific contexts), Realizing (producing a communication artifact), and Evaluating (multi-source reflective assessment).

This study evaluates the applicability and effectiveness of the A-SPIRE model in cultivating medical students’ capacity for precision science communication. We hypothesize that this model will improve students’ cognitive understanding, knowledge acquisition, and practical skills in creating audience-specific health communication materials, thereby offering a valuable framework for public health education within medical curricula.

The findings of this study suggest that the A-SPIRE model may be a promising and actionable framework for integrating audience-tailored public health communication competencies into medical education, with profound implications for aligning medical training with the goals of the “Healthy China” strategy. As a structured, theory-to-practice pedagogical model, it represents a novel contribution to addressing the underdeveloped area of health communication training in current medical education. By guiding medical students through a sequential cycle of concept anchoring, practical application, and iterative evaluation, the model effectively appears to facilitate the translation of abstract health communication theories into tangible skills—aims to address a long-standing gap between theoretical knowledge and clinical-practice needs in medical curricula.

A pivotal finding of this study is the significant improvement in students’ conceptual grasp of precision communication and their ability to value its importance. This advancement is not merely academic; it aligns with foundational health communication theories such as Audience Segmentation theory and the Health Belief Model, which emphasize that effective health promotion hinges on understanding audience-specific needs and barriers (8, 18). The A-SPIRE model’s strength lies in its operationalization of these theories: it moves beyond passive knowledge transmission to create experiential learning opportunities where students must apply theoretical principles to design messages tailored to distinct audiences. This represents another novel contribution of our work: transforming abstract theories into actionable, audience-centered learning tasks. This transition from “knowing” to “doing” is critical, as medical graduates are increasingly expected to act as health educators alongside their clinical roles.

The observed enhancement in both knowledge acquisition (evidenced by upward shifts in knowledge test distribution) and skill transfer (reflected in high-quality student-created artifacts) further provides supporting evidence for the model’s potential utility. Particularly noteworthy is the “Integrating” and “Realizing” stages, which simulate real-world public health campaign development by forcing students to contextualize abstract theories into concrete creative tasks for specific populations. Strong theoretical knowledge is vital for medical students’ communication competence (22). This experiential design addresses a well-documented limitation of traditional medical education—over-reliance on theoretical instruction—by demonstrating that integrating theory with practical application yields more durable communication competencies (23).

A notable observation from the peer evaluations is that Group B, which adopted a fully interdisciplinary composition, achieved numerically higher mean scores across all dimensions of engagement, practicality, and effectiveness, whereas Group A, consisting solely of medical students, showed relatively lower scores. Although intergroup comparisons did not reach statistical significance, this pattern is consistent with our longitudinal observations across the 12-session elective course, in which health communication products developed by groups comprising only medical students consistently exhibited weaker innovation, narrative structure, and visual appeal compared with those created by multidisciplinary teams. This consistent trend, supported by convergent observations from multiple teaching practices, suggests that disciplinary homogeneity may still influence the creativity and diversity of health communication outputs, even if statistical significance was not detected in the present study. Such a pattern may be partially attributed to the relatively homogeneous disciplinary background of medical students and, more importantly, insufficient emphasis on science popularization competencies in current medical curricula, which limits students’ exposure to non-medical perspectives and creative expressions. To strengthen these competencies, we propose two targeted strategies: first, curricular Innovation—introducing specialized courses such as medical visualization, narrative medicine, and communication psychology to build a foundational knowledge; second, practical Integration, establishing multidisciplinary practice platform based on Team-Based Learning (TBL) to foster collaborative problem-solving and cross-domain knowledge integration (24, 25). This approach is supported by transdisciplinary education theory, which posits that co-creation among diverse professionals is key to solving complex public health challenges and elevating the quality of health communication (26–28). Additionally, adopting a transdisciplinary approach that integrates communication studies, behavioral sciences, and AI technical capabilities is crucial for enhancing AI’s competence in health communication (29). By adopting such a model, we aim to enable future physicians to navigate communication barriers and enhance cross-sectoral synergy (30, 31), a competency increasingly demanded in public health practice. For instance, Michael T. Lawless has demonstrated that the provision of practical knowledge is essential for cultivating transdisciplinary collaboration capabilities among professionals at different career stages (32). Similarly, the A-SPIRE model, by incorporating interdisciplinary teamwork, not only enhances student performance but also prepares them for the collaborative nature of modern public health practice.

The high student satisfaction and self-efficacy reported in this study may reflect the model’s long-term potential to shape competent health communicators. This positive reception is partly attributed to the model’s alignment with students’ identified learning needs: 74.22% of medical students have previously acknowledged the need to strengthen core health communication knowledge (11). By building students’ confidence in their communication abilities, the A-SPIRE model contributes to nurturing a physician workforce that is both clinically proficient and capable of engaging communities as trusted health advocates— a core objective of modern public health education.

Collectively, these findings highlight the capacity of the A-SPIRE model to bridge medical education and public health practice. The novel contributions of this study are twofold: the proposal and validation of the A-SPIRE framework, and the integration of theory-driven experiential learning into health communication education. In an era where the growing burden of non-communicable diseases and persistent health inequities call for proactive and targeted community engagement, cultivating tailored health communication competencies among medical students is no longer discretionary, but imperative. With its structured, student-centered design, the A-SPIRE model serves as a scalable and sustainable approach to enhancing the role of medical education in advancing the Healthy China strategy. Future applications may further explore interdisciplinary integration and adaptability to emerging educational technologies, so as to better align medical training with evolving public health demands.