Health Communication最新文献

The global problem of domestic violence is commonly addressed in health communication through public service advertising. Given that domestic violence is much rooted in cultural norms, it is essential to consider this factor in public service advertising in countries with significant cultural diversity to increase its effectiveness. Unfortunately, this point has received limited attention in the literature. Addressing the gap, the current study explored the perceptions of a domestic violence public service advertisement (PSA) by the World Health Organization that targets the general public by two culturally different population groups-White non-Muslim U.S.-born women and Muslim newcomer women in the United States-using in-depth interviews. The thematic analysis brought three major themes: (1) prior experience and elaboration, (2) demonstrated physical abuse, and (3) cultural appropriateness. Despite expectations based on prior literature, Muslim women showed a better awareness of domestic violence and a higher engagement with the PSA than American women. Hence, in some population groups and communities, American women may need more awareness campaigns about domestic violence than Muslim women. Among the key implications, the study suggests that, in certain contexts, the mechanism of elaboration within the elaboration likelihood model may be stronger than descriptive cultural norms, cultural background, and cultural identity.

Metaphors are widely used in health campaign slogans to change health behavior. While metaphors can attract attention by presenting audience members with a puzzle to solve, they can also make slogans less clear. Markers can potentially help to process metaphors. To test the effects of metaphorical health slogans with and without markers, we conducted three experiments (N_total = 696), each using a 2 (metaphor, literal) × 3 (no marker, lexical marker, lexical-typographical marker) mixed Latin square design, targeting different unhealthy behaviors: smoking (Study 1), drinking alcohol (Study 2) and eating junk food (Study 3). Across the three studies, results demonstrated metaphorical slogans are perceived as more creative and less clear than literal slogans. In Studies 1 and 2, metaphorical slogans were appreciated less than literal slogans. Only in Study 1 did a lexical-typographical marker increase the clarity of the health campaign slogans. Metaphors can thus spark attention, while markers have limited effects.

This paper examines how nurses in United States hospitals generate and rely on informal communication practices of collective care-what we call affective contextures of care-to sustain their work and well-being within an increasingly financialized healthcare system. This dynamic relational fabric weaves together the emotional, social, and material dimensions of collective care to compensate for insufficient state and organizational support. Drawing on a narrative case study based on interviews with hospital nurses, we argue that these institutionally invisible affective and informal practices of care among nurses are intertwined with and essential for organizational, institutional, and economic dimensions. Our analysis demonstrates how affective contextures of collective care play a crucial role in sustaining healthcare institutions. We critically examine how institutional discourses of resilience position nurses as personally responsible for their well-being while obscuring systemic issues. In contrast, the informal nurse-to-nurse resilience practices that nurses describe in this study reflect a form of solidarity that resists the extractive logic of neoliberal healthcare. Extending the communication theory of resilience, we argue that affective contextures of care enable a rhizomatic form of organizing resilience in the context of ongoing precarity. These practices of solidarity embody a dialectic in which the same resilience processes simultaneously help sustain the current financialized healthcare system and generate potential for transformation by reclaiming collective agency and envisioning more sustainable, humane systems of care work.

Based on a Dutch corpus of 40 dietitian-client conversations on malnutrition in the primary care setting, we use conversation analysis to investigate how dietary advice is provided in the context of shared decision-making. We demonstrate how client involvement is encouraged in some ways but constrained in others, making it difficult for clients to accept advice and making it less responsive to their concerns. First, we show how dietitians invite clients to co-create the basis of the advice. However, once clients participate in establishing the underlying logic of the advice, it becomes difficult for them to raise objections or propose alternative solutions. Later pursuits of commitment by dietitians lead clients to mainly align with the practitioner's line of reasoning, rather than to engage in practices of shared decision-making. Our study highlights the importance of timing in engaging clients during dietary counseling. By making dietitians more aware of interactional practices and their consequences, client engagement can be improved, further increasing the effectiveness of dietary intervention to treat (risk of) malnutrition.

This study examines how Nigerian Muslims with jinn possession experiences construct jinn possession stigmas, their socio-relational impacts, and management communication strategies. Interviews with 14 participants revealed that public, self, and enacted stigmas induced by family members and friends were reinforced by religio-cultural beliefs framing jinn possession as contagion, disease, or spiritual cultism. These stigmas led to social isolation, discrimination, emotional abuse, and internalized distress among participants. To navigate the stigmas, participants accepted jinn possession stigma through selective disclosure; challenged the application of jinn possession stigma to self by avoiding and concealing stigma attributes; and challenged public understanding of jinn possession and its application to self by denying, ignoring, and religiously accepting the condition as a temporary and divine test to seek Islamically grounded therapies. This study emphasizes the role of religious frameworks in shaping resilience strategies, suggesting that advocacy and religio-culturally sensitive interventions could mitigate jinn possession stigmatization. Ultimately, this research contributes to broader discussions on the intersection of religious beliefs, health communication, and promotion, alongside social perceptions in non-Western contexts. It also offers valuable insights into alternative epistemologies often excluded in health-related discourses.

Emergency risk communication is an integral component of an emergency response, including to the coronavirus disease pandemic. Designing and implementing effective communication, particularly in the context of new, evolving public health crises, requires systematic measurement, evaluation, and learning (MEL). In the Western Pacific Region, the World Health Organization (WHO) response to COVID-19 was guided by the Communication for Health (C4H) approach, which included developing and applying a robust MEL framework. This article describes how the WHO in the Western Pacific developed and applied a MEL framework to enhance and assess the effectiveness of COVID-19 communication throughout the pandemic lifecycle, from preparedness to response and recovery. It summarizes lessons and provides recommendations for MEL application in future public health emergencies. Key lessons include the importance of incorporating MEL in the emergency preparedness phase, maintaining flexibility in MEL plan development and implementation, using agile methodologies, conducting phased data collection, and leveraging all available data sources. Ensuring MEL results are disseminated and their application tracked for further improvement is essential. Additionally, building MEL capacity not only facilitates the design of stronger MEL and smoother implementation but also enhances the likelihood that evaluation results are effectively understood and applied.

In Colombia, resistance to vaccination against COVID-19 among indigenous communities was high, in part, due to a lack of culturally appropriate information and health communication strategies. In response, the Colombia country office of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), implemented an ethnic-based risk communication and community engagement (RCCE) strategy between June 2021 and March 2022. The strategy contributed to a significant increase in vaccination coverage among indigenous peoples in rural areas of Amazonas and Nariño, from total refusal to 36% and 41%, respectively, in the first year of the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. The ethnic-based RCCE strategy incorporated contributions from anthropology, pedagogy, political science, communications, psychology, and methodologies such as in-depth interviews, knowledge dialogues, and intercultural health training. The implementation of this experience in Colombia helped build trust between indigenous communities and health workers, appropriately addressed cultural beliefs and practices related to health and disease, and established meaningful links between traditional and Western medicine in Nariño and Amazonas, the two provinces (departments) where it was implemented. This article presents this strategy as a significant tool for increasing vaccination coverage in indigenous communities.

This article describes the central role capacity building of Risk Communication, Community Engagement, and Infodemic Management (RCCE-IM) played in the WHO Regional Office for Europe's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and expolores whether this is best characterized as a case of "building back better", a focusing event or a new form of crisis response. It draws on six semi-structured interviews with practitioners who worked in the WHO Regional Office's RCCE-IM pillar during the COVID-19 pandemic, and one interview with an emergency consultant who joined subsequently. The results describe the RCCE-IM capacity building actions that took place at different stages of the pandemic and how these supported the overall response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The discussion section draws on experiences, examples and opinions from the interviews and peer-reviewed literature to compare the Regional Office's actions and the results achieved against theoretical models. It concludes that, despite some uncertainties as to the extent and duration of results achieved, as at autumn 2023 the Regional Office could be said to have "built back better" both its own RCCE-IM capacity and that of the countries and areas it serves.

The context of COVID-19 in the African continent presents a unique blend of challenges and resilience. Compared to other regions, Africa reported lower case numbers and mortality rates, but it still faced significant health system, economic, and social disruptions. By June 2023, the 47 countries of the WHO African Region had recorded 9.5 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and over 175,000 deaths, though under-reporting due to limited testing was likely. The COVID-19 pandemic in Africa was accompanied by an infodemic - an overabundance of information, including false or misleading content, which made it difficult for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance. The infodemic had profound implications for public health communication, vaccine uptake, and pandemic management. To counter misinformation and coordinate fact-checking and risk communication at regional level, WHO-AFRO and partners launched the Africa Infodemic Response Alliance (AIRA) in December 2020. This article offers a comprehensive review of AIRA's initiatives to create a robust infodemic management system in Africa. Supported by case studies and assessment data, it sheds light on the role of information in saving lives. Through lessons learned this analysis focuses on how infodemic management fostered coordination among partners and bolstered national authorities' capabilities to manage information and save lives. Conclusions suggest that enhancing capacity among public health stakeholders in infodemic management can empower the public to make healthy choices irrespective of misinformation.

This article examines the Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) response from the World Health Organization headquarters in concert with its six regional offices and partners in response to the COVID-19 pandemic through two lenses. First, using the findings from the 2017 WHO Guideline for Emergency Risk Communication Policy and Practice, we compared the pre-pandemic recommendations against the realities of response. Second, because WHO was seen as the global leader for RCCE response, we also viewed the RCCE actions through six key crisis leadership functions. As with every major public health emergency, employing proven methodologies as well as novel approaches to meet both emergent and unexpected needs, expands and improves our understanding of preparedness and response. The purpose of this analysis is to illustrate and interrogate the role of centralized leadership and processes in facilitating a global pandemic response involving multiple regions and agencies. This analysis provides a description of processes employed, lessons learned and suggestions for additional operational research. In addition, gaps in crisis communication and community engagement research, especially as they relate to the dynamic context of a global pandemic, are described.