Health Communication最新文献

Existing research on vaccination communication has emphasized commercial marketing and social mobilization, while culturally attuned approaches remain underexplored. This study examines how the Chinese state moralizes vaccine promotion on social media in emergencies. Using content analysis of 205 government-produced videos and 58 stakeholder interviews, we find that state actors frame vaccination as a civilizational practice that merges Confucian ethics with biomedical rationales. Simultaneously, they harness entertainment affordances that intertwine playful performance, ritualization, and interactivity to amplify affective resonance and foster participatory engagement. This dual strategy reframes vaccination from a solely obligatory act into a socially meaningful, even enjoyable, act. However, we also identify a critical caveat: when moral appeals become excessive, they may reduce message receptivity. Our findings suggest that effective vaccine communication should bound moralization. Specifically, communication can be more effective by focusing on key ethical messages, using supportive, dialogue-oriented tones, and connecting moral narratives with practical guidance. We introduce a bounded moralization framework that reconciles collectivist and individualist orientations, balances entertainment with epistemic authority, and optimizes the communication dynamics between state and society. Practically, this framework offers guidance for designing culturally grounded health campaigns that are both persuasive and respectful of public needs.

The purpose of this study was to explore the clinical experiences and perceptions regarding three talk model shared decision-making (SDM) practices among different specialty of resident physicians in Taiwan. Resident physicians from a teaching hospital in Southern Taiwan were recruited using purposive sampling. In total, 19 residents participated in one-on-one, in-depth, qualitative, and semi-structured interviews regarding their experiences practicing SDM with their patients. Among these residents, five were from internal medicine, five were from surgery, five were from family medicine, and four were from emergency medicine. The results are as follows: (1) Residents' SDM experiences aligned with all three stages of the three talk model. In the Team Talk stage, they emphasized engaging patients and families, especially in complex cases or when family opinions differed, through a three-way dialogue among physicians, patients, and families. (2) In the Option Talk stage, they prioritized explaining treatment options, including benefits, risks, and lifestyle implications, and encouraging patients and families to express concerns and preferences to support informed decisions. (3) In the Decision Talk stage, they highlighted the importance of in-depth communication to understand patient needs and preferences, summarize and confirm information, and reach a shared consensus. (4) SDM practices differed among specialties due to variations in clinical context and time constraints. Consequently, these findings underscore the need for strategies tailored to each specialty. Tailored SDM training and decision-support tools can bridge the theory-practice gap, strengthen physician-patient relationships, and enhance care quality.

As social virtual reality (social VR) platforms increasingly captivate users worldwide, questions arise about how digitally mediated self-representation affects psychological health. This study investigates how avatar characteristics-specifically perceived avatar appearance similarity and perceived attractiveness-shape users' well-being in social VR, with a focus on the mediating role of avatar identification. Drawing on two-wave longitudinal data collected over a three-month period from 486 VRChat users, the findings reveal that perceived avatar attractiveness was positively associated with users' satisfaction with virtual life through enhanced avatar identification. However, perceived similarity did not exert a significant positive influence. Notably, while identification with attractive avatars supported virtual well-being, avatar attractiveness was also negatively associated with self-acceptance, suggesting a complex relationship between virtual self-presentation and mental health outcomes. These results highlight the critical psychological processes through which virtual identity communication is associated with users' well-being and self-perception. This study calls for greater attention within health communication research to the ways avatar-mediated interactions in emerging digital environments can both support and challenge mental health.

The rise of social media short-form videos has led to an increase in health professionals demonstrating medical procedures online, including Pap tests for cervical cancer screening. This study uses an online experiment to investigate the effects of showing the vaginal speculum in short-form social media videos (i.e. TikTok videos) encouraging Pap tests, alongside the impact of framing the content to address common barriers to testing. The findings reveal the presence of the speculum led to significantly higher ratings of fear though the level of fear was modest. Videos framed to address knowledge barriers (i.e. providing information about the importance of Pap tests and screening guidelines) were perceived as more effective than those framed to address psychological barriers (i.e. providing information about avoiding pain and discomfort during the test) and increased the likelihood of getting a Pap test. The knowledge barrier frame also resulted in less defensive avoidance compared to the psychological barrier. Most importantly, the study's examination of the combined influence of the two-message features shows that the presence of the speculum can either help or hinder the persuasive outcomes of the message depending upon the video's framing. Likelihood of getting a Pap test was greatest when the speculum was shown in conjunction with knowledge barrier framing and lowest when the speculum was shown in videos with psychological barrier framing, suggesting a possible cognitive overload effect. These findings provide practical and theoretical insights into how emotionally evocative imagery can influence message outcomes, sometimes unintentionally eliciting fear and undermining persuasive effects.

Guided by the communicated sense-making model, we describe the results of an analysis of interviews with 15 Black women about their experiences with postpartum depression (PPD). The findings indicate that the women made sense of their experience using three categories of metaphors: (1) mobility, (2) cultural expectations, and (3) social support. These categories of metaphors provide evidence that the discourse of motherhood as distressing is expressed in the narratives of Black women with PPD, even as they seek to fulfill the demands of the discourse of motherhood as intensive. The metaphors also reveal that Black mothers with PPD struggle with the cultural pressure placed on them to act as a strong Black woman/mother. As a result, the participants demonstrate that cultural expectations expressed by their social network add to the motherhood as distressing discourse. Finally, the study makes an argument for the inclusion of metaphors as a viable and supporting device in the communicated sense-making model. Implications for practical and future applications are presented.

Scholars speculate that injunctive norms messages elicit more psycholgical reactance compared to descriptive norms messages. This research argues that the commonly employed linguistic variations of injunctive norms messages account for reactance effects rather than the injunctive norms vs. descriptive norms difference itself. We employed a 5 (norms messaging: descriptive norms vs. injunctive norms approval vs. injunctive norms disapproval vs. injunctive norms should vs. injunctive norms must) × 2 (topic: responsible drinking vs. nutritious diet) between-subjects experiment (N = 424) to test the degree to which specific injunctive norms messages elicit reactance. The findings indicated that the injunctive norms must message produced a significantly stronger perceived freedom threat than both the descriptive norms message and the injunctive norms should message. Moreover, serial mediation suggested that after the exposure to the injunctive norms must message, participants reported stronger perceived freedom threat and psychological reactance, followed by more unfavorable attitudes and weaker behavioral intention to engage in responsible drinking and a healthy diet. No differences occurred between the injunctive norms approval and disapproval messages. The results provide theoretical and empirical clarity for the relationship between social norms messaging and psychological reactance and offer practical guidance for social norm-based public health interventions.

Men's genital hygiene and grooming practices are rarely discussed despite their importance for men's overall health. The purpose of this reflective thematic analysis is to understand the messages Black men received about genital hygiene using the theory of socialization. In 2022, n = 8 heterosexual Black men ages 24-43 participated in semi-structured interviews as a part of the Generation Genital (Gen2) Messages Study. Grounded in the culture-centered approach's epistemological commitment to centering marginalized voices, this study integrates sexual socialization theory as an analytical framework to examine how sociohistorical and sociocultural constructs of masculinity shape heterosexual Black men's grooming and hygiene practices. Results of the thematic analysis revealed eight themes related to Please provide missing details for Barkley, 2023 reference list entry.Black men's grooming and hygiene messages, which were then classified using sexual socialization theory (i.e. familial socialization, peer socialization, cultural socialization, and self-exploration). Our study's findings highlighted how differing levels of socialization enable and constrain messaging related to grooming and hygiene. Further, the results emphasize men's desire for more health communication regarding grooming and hygiene to maintain their health and protect their partners from illnesses. However, Black men in our study may have experienced hesitations about engaging in grooming, as it may compromise their already precarious standing within the culture of hegemonic masculinity. Finally, this study offered recommendations for parents, community organizers, and practitioners to help Black men and families engage in conversations about male hygiene and grooming practices.

As health communication grapples with urgent challenges, including the politicization of health issues, global public health crises, and accelerating technological change, there is a growing need to understand how the field has evolved and where it is heading. Existing studies have laid important groundwork in analyzing Health Communication's content and influence. Building on that work, this study offers a longitudinal perspective that captures broader thematic and authorship trends across more than three decades. This study explores thematic shifts and research trends in 2,648 original articles published in Health Communication between 1989 and 2023. Using a topic model, we identified five dominant themes: health campaigns, patient care and support, public health and risk communication, digital media in health, and behavior change interventions. Cohort analyses showed strong author retention and increasing diversity among contributors. Visualization techniques, including 3- and 5-year moving averages and heatmaps, revealed consistent growth in publication output and a broadening of research topics over time. Among several unexpected findings included the limited exploration of global health communication issues. These core findings demonstrate the journal's critical role in advancing health communication scholarship and provide insights into evolving research priorities and their implications for public health.

Given the limited research on the content attributes of anti-vaccination discourse regarding COVID-19 vaccines, our study investigated how conspiracy communities on Reddit, which may serve as potential anti-vaccination groups, have framed their discussions about the vaccines. Using topic modeling, we identified six topics including conspiracy theories and vaccine hesitancy, scientific (mis)information, vaccine policies and politics, vaccine efficacy, impact on special groups, and adverse effects. Furthermore, drawing on social identity theory and the concept of echo chambers, we explored the online dynamics of these communities by examining how negative sentiments and user engagement varied across topics. Negative sentiments were strongest in discussions about vaccine efficacy and adverse effects, with vaccine efficacy generating the most fear and sadness, while adverse effects elicited the most anger and disgust. Engagement also varied across topics, with vaccine efficacy and conspiracy theories generating the highest number of comments, and vaccine efficacy receiving the most upvotes. Our study provides valuable insights into the discourse surrounding COVID-19 vaccines within conspiracy communities. The variations across topics offer a more nuanced understanding of this discourse and could inform developing tailored strategies to counter misinformation.

Community engagement has been used in a variety of settings to work with communities to support maternal and newborn health (MNH) care-seeking. Communication is an important component of CE, influencing how information is shared or behavior change is promoted. However, there is limited evidence explaining "how, why and for whom" communication works in these approaches. This study presents middle-range theories (MRTs) explaining how communication in community engagement works to improve MNH care-seeking. Building off of a multi-site realist evaluation conducted in Zambia, this study further synthesizes seven programme theories with the substantive literature to present four MRTs. The MRTs, aligning with elements of the communication transmission model, describe the considerations that make communication in community engagement work by addressing the message, channel/feedback loops, sender, and receiver. These theories can contribute to explaining how communication in community engagement works and inform future programming by presenting practical recommendations.