Health Communication最新文献

In this study, normatively responsible advocacy is proposed as a primary objective of instructional risk and crisis communication during health-related crises and high-risk events. The World Health Organization's learning interventions provided to communities and countries during the COVID-19 pandemic serve as a case study. The case study emphasized phronesis in assessing the capacity for normatively responsible advocacy in instructional risk and crisis communication to promote social justice. The case study revealed the recommendations provided in the World Health Organization's, WHO implementation guidance on emergencies capacity-building: Approaches for just-in-time learning response to health emergencies, are fitting with the four tenets of normatively responsible advocacy in instructional risk and crisis communication: (1) balancing cognitive, affective, and behavioral learning; (2) improvisation in designing instructional content; (3) agility in distribution of instructional content; and (4) meeting the normative needs and expectations of diverse audiences.

Declining trust in public health organizations has (not coincidentally) coincided with a rise in health misinformation on social media. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) strategically employed corrective communications to counter common misinformation as an important aspect of its risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) efforts. Whereas past research focuses mainly on the ability of corrections to reduce misperceptions, we turn attention to the broader question of whether and how they affect perceptions of the WHO. We analyze an online survey experiment (N = 1343) with a 2 × 2 design: correction approach (preemptive vs. responsive) × source (WHO vs. user) as compared to a control condition. Results suggest that the corrective infographic significantly improved public approval of the WHO's communication efforts and its credibility, but only when it was shared by a WHO information bot in direct response to a misinformation post. Interestingly, these same benefits did not accrue to the WHO when a social media user shared the WHO's graphics. Moreover, individuals initially critical of the WHO's performance increased their ratings of the WHO's credibility after seeing the corrective infographic from the WHO. The findings inform WHO's future RCCE efforts during a crisis and also highlight the potential of AI-driven bots affiliated with expert organizations to support corrective efforts.

Rumors and misinformation can escalate to the level of an infodemic and significantly complicate public health efforts to disseminate accurate information and promote understanding. Like other parts of the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, the WHO South-East Asia Region had its share of this challenge. This paper reports on the joint WHO South-East Asia and AMARC Asia Pacific program titled, Building resilient communities against COVID-19: Responding to fake news and misinformation through community radios in Asia Pacific, or simply, the Community Radio Project. This initiative involved examining the landscape of rumors and misinformation circulating in the Region and designing a corresponding online training for community radio journalists, with the aim to strengthen their capacities in managing infodemics. The project also included the rollout of a short mentorship program, as well as the building of an online bank of resources where various tools had been made available to support community radio practitioners in tackling rumors and misinformation. Mixed-method assessment was used to examine the online training component of the Community Radio Project 2 years after its implementation. A majority of the respondents confirmed that the 2022 training contents had helped them and that their respective radio stations had been taking action to help address misinformation spreading in the localities. Additional capacity building, strengthening networks and resources, and research will enhance community radio's ability to address infodemics.

Self-disclosure is critical for individuals with concealable stigmatized conditions, enabling them to gain recognition, understanding, and social support. While prior research has extensively examined whether and why individuals disclose, relatively little attention is paid to what, how, and with whom disclosure occurs. Leveraging large-scale support forum data, this study examined how new parents disclosed depressive episodes online, analyzing four dimensions of self-disclosure (amount, breadth, depth, and valence) alongside four facets of social support (quantity, positivity, responsiveness, and informativeness). The findings reveal nuanced gender differences that haven't been documented in previous research. In the relative anonymity of online discussions, mothers tended to share a broader range of life stressors and discuss each in more depth, while fathers' self-disclosures were longer and more positive but less personal. For mothers, the act of self-disclosure itself was beneficial for mental wellness. Fathers, however, appeared less affected by their own disclosure but more sensitive to the social support they received. Crucially, for both mothers and fathers, social support acts as a key mediator between self-disclosure and resilience, with a notable gender disparity in the impact of informational support. This research contributes a multi-dimensional, gender-sensitive understanding of self-disclosure, offering valuable insights for designing effective intervention and supportive environment for new parents' wellbeing.

Person-centered care is achieved through the approaches taken within consultations with patients. In this study, we aim to better understand strategies surgeons use during consultations to improve patient understanding and acceptance of diagnosis and treatment recommendations. We filmed 32 surgical consultations with three different surgeons at a private orthopedic outpatient clinic in metropolitan Australia. All participants were fluent English speakers and over the age of 18. Twenty-two recordings met the analysis criteria and were analyzed using conversation analysis. One consultation was selected for single-case analysis. Our analysis demonstrates that integrating a diagnosis discussion with treatment recommendations, in the frame of disease progression, works as a person-centered approach, bridging the knowledge gap between doctor and patient in the context of a health condition with limited choice regarding treatment. This case study highlights the potential of an integrated diagnosis-treatment approach to improve patient comprehension and acceptance.

Health-related myths spread rapidly and can have a negative impact not only on individuals, but also on public health. In the present research, we aim to investigate the extent to which the effectiveness of debunking health misinformation with the truth sandwich text format depends on the source delivering the correction. Further, we examined whether source trustworthiness and psychological reactance mediate this effect. We conducted two pre-registered experimental studies with samples representative of the German population in terms of gender and age (total N = 2,684). In the context of a hypothetical online information search on the topics of vaccines (Study 1) or nutrition (Study 2), participants' exposure to the corrective information to one of several selected myths and its source (general practitioner vs. health institution vs. company) was varied. The main dependent variable was health myth agreement after debunking. We found that the prevalence of vaccine myths was rather low, which methodologically limited our debunking efforts. For nutrition myths, the debunking was successful, and all sources were able to debunk misinformation, as there was no evidence for differences in their effectiveness. However, we found a significant indirect effect of source on myth agreement after debunking, mediated in serial by source trustworthiness and psychological reactance. This research indicates that the effect of the source in a truth sandwich seems to be less important if the debunking message is carefully formulated. However, the characteristics of the source can still exert an indirect influence on the recipients' response to the message.

Transgender populations face disproportionate health challenges, including elevated mental health risks and limited access to gender-affirming care, compounded by systemic discrimination and stigma. In response, online forums have become critical spaces for health information exchange, peer support, and resilience-building among this population. Within these spaces, individuals negotiate stigma, identity, and care-seeking through shared language and narratives. To understand these dynamics, the present study examines discourse in two Reddit communities, r/transgender and r/transhealth, using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC-22) and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) to analyze emotional tone, analytical thinking, authenticity, clout, and thematic content. Results show that r/transgender discourse often reflects the emotional toll of distal stressors, emphasizing identity negotiation and emotional processing, while r/transhealth features solution-oriented dialogs focused on navigating healthcare systems and sharing affirming care experiences. These findings extend Minority Stress Theory into digital contexts, illustrating how community norms shape coping strategies ranging from emotional validation to practical problem-solving. Insights from this study can inform more empathetic, culturally competent communication between healthcare providers, institutions, and transgender patients to improve trust, engagement, and health outcomes.

Patients are engaging in unprecedented levels of online health information-seeking (e.g., via TikTok, Google). Guided by shared decision-making (SDM) theorizing, this study illuminates health care workers' (HCWs) perspectives of patients' use of online health information in clinical encounters. We identify third-party health information (i.e., health information from beyond a clinical encounter) as a decision-making agent in the SDM process. Applying reflexive thematic analysis to analyze 17 interviews with HCWs, our findings revealed how online health information influences the SDM process by shifting perceptions of decision-making orientation and heightening patients' sense of agency. Our findings also reveal how HCWs navigate SDM when patients use online health information by praising the new-age information economy, promoting mediated health literacy to moderate patient health anxiety, and prioritizing and validating patients' lived experiences. We conclude by discussing implications for SDM and practical implications for HCWs.

Given calls for greater attention to culture in interpersonal health communication research, we interviewed 29 South Asian women between the ages of 18 and 60 managing chronic health issues to explore culturally specific dilemmas in health-related talk within families. Guided by normative rhetorical theory, our findings narrate polysemic meanings of health as generational, communal, and personal. These meanings created dilemmas centered on what it means to care and for whom, with women describing discursive challenges in privileging their own health without dishonoring their (grand)mothers' health experiences, disrupting family harmony, or neglecting their duties and obligations. In response, women adopted different interpretive lenses to embrace the both/and nature of their membership in multiple cultures of care. Findings have implications for interpersonal and health communication theory, highlighting how fractures in cultural norms manifest as discrete interactional dilemmas in everyday communication about health in families.

Although menstruation is a biologically significant part of life, U.S. menstruators struggle with managing their menstrual cycle. One tool developed to aid in this process is the menstrual cup. A menstrual cup is a bell-shaped device, made of medical grade silicone, used to collect menstrual blood, and has been identified as a safe, cost-effective and environmentally beneficial menstrual management tool. Despite its benefits, menstrual cups remain underutilized and under-researched within United States contexts. As such, this study serves as a first step to understand perceptions of menstrual cups by U.S. menstruators. Qualitative responses were collected using Amazon's Mechanical Turk, then thematically analyzed using the extended parallel process model as a guiding framework to understand menstruators' beliefs regarding the product. Findings from N = 341 participants (M = 38.8 years; SD = 9.6) ranging from ages 21 to 75, illustrate the constructs of self-efficacy and response efficacy and were found to align with participant perceptions of advantages and disadvantages of the menstrual cup. Theoretical and practical contributions, including how communication theory can help understand the reasons why people may choose to adopt a new menstrual management tool, are addressed.