Journal of Health Communication最新文献

Social marketing is a recommended framework advocated by the federal government for health promotion professionals to use in the creation of programming and campaigns. Arguably the most visible element of any social marketing effort rests with its 4th "P" - promotion. This scoping review (n = 174 publications) sought to understand how social marketers around the globe over a 13-year time span promoted their ideas to target audiences. Seven promotional channel strategies were identified (print, interpersonal, mass media, online/digital, promotional materials/products, social media, and media advocacy). The most popular strategies were print and interpersonal channels. Social marketing efforts used an average of 3.86 (SD = 1.47) promotional channel strategies. However, most efforts reviewed (55.7%) did not include any images or examples of the promotional strategies they utilized. Additionally, the majority also did not list an author affiliated with a communication department/school or communication agency (82.2%). For social marketing to truly achieve its aim of promoting social good for all of society, it is important for writeups of these efforts to be less ambiguous in their descriptions of their efforts so that future promotion professionals are not having to start from scratch when seeking to communicate effectively with their populations.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the role of social media for official health communication, especially for young people who rarely engage with other public health agency channels. This study explored the social media health communication experiences of health communicators and young people, during and outside the COVID-19 emergency. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with professional health communicators responsible for social media communication of Australian government health departments and young people aged 18-24 years (n = 21). Interviews were analyzed thematically using Framework Analysis. The results revealed health communicators faced challenges in their work, including organizational barriers and misinformation. Whilst the COVID-19 pandemic amplified these challenges, it also brought opportunities like innovation, streamlined approval systems and increased followership. Health communicators targeted young people by using channels popular with the age group and using trendy and engaging formats. Young people found these communications straightforward but not consistently engaging or humorous and recommended involving young people in future messaging to increase appeal. These findings highlight the need for further improvements in social media health communication to youth. Health communicators require increased support and mechanisms allowing innovation in future pandemics.

Critical health literacy ("CHL") is concerned the complex skills needed for critical evaluation of health information. It holds potential to enhance beneficial practices such as adherence to public health policies and general health behaviors. However, no previous study has given a comprehensive overview of existing research on CHL and its association with health behaviors. This scoping review addresses this gap by reviewing 167 articles on CHL identified through a comprehensive search strategy encompassing 11 databases. We observed significant growth in CHL research post 2019, with a high number of conceptual papers and instrument validations. Consistent with previous critiques, we also identified potential conceptual conflation. Notably, of the 167 articles, only 28 explicitly reported associations between CHL and health behaviors, most of which concerned patient populations. Among these 28 studies, the majority identified significant associations between CHL and various health behaviors, while others reported mixed results. Importantly, some indicated that CHL was associated with reduced health behaviors. This scoping review concludes that the current research landscape of CHL is broad and heterogeneous. It underscores the need for further investigation into the complex association between CHL and different health behaviors to better understand its potential in health communication and policy development.

This study examines how narrative and humor function within the "Get Real About Diabetes" health communication campaign, which features spokesperson messaging by actor Anthony Anderson. Guided by Miller-Day and Hecht's Narrative Engagement Framework and Foss's rhetorical criticism, we conducted a narrative and rhetorical analysis of 19 media artifacts to examine how culturally tailored storytelling strategies engage African American audiences in diabetes awareness and self-management. The analysis reveals recurring persuasive features -including testimonial narrative, cultural symbolism, and humor - as key mechanisms for enhancing audience identification, emotional engagement, and cultural message resonant. Findings indicate that narratives not only contribute to raising diabetes awareness but also reframe diabetes management discourse as an empowering and culturally significant endeavor. This study contributes to the growing body of scholarship on culturally grounded health communication, demonstrating the value of integrating narrative and rhetorical frameworks to design more engaging, resonant public campaigns.

Social media platforms such as TikTok hold tremendous promise for reaching large proportions of the general population with health messaging. However, the proliferation of health misinformation on these platforms poses a significant public health risk. Partnerships between public health experts and social media content creators are a novel intervention, which may overcome concerns about misinformation, and catalyze the proliferation of evidence-based health messages on social media. To build such partnerships between creators and mental health and health communication experts, the Center for Health Communication at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health held an in-person Summit that attracted mental health creators working on TikTok and other social media platforms. Over the course of two days, creators were exposed to techniques for communicating evidence-based information and discussions on how to promote mental health online. Following the Summit, creators (n = 14) provided immediate open-ended qualitative feedback about the Summit. Then, 6-months later, creators were re-contacted for in-depth interviews to explore the impact of the summit on their beliefs and behaviors. In both the immediate post-Summit feedback and 6-month post-Summit interviews, creators reported that attending the Summit impacted their content-making behaviors, increased their sense of responsibility and awareness of their power to impact mental health outcomes among social media users, validated their role as health communicators, and created a much-needed community of support among peers. Given that social media is a primary source of health information for many people, our findings provide a blueprint for public health communicators hoping to build lasting strategic relationships with today's most influential media gatekeepers.

This study proposes a dual-motive model of health information seeking and avoidance, incorporating two distinctive motives for information behaviors - the accuracy and defense motives. In the proposed model, we identify the key antecedents to these two motives and explore political ideology as a potential moderator. In the context of COVID-19, an online survey was conducted with 638 respondents in South Korea. The results indicate that information insufficiency is linked to information seeking, whereas information overload and denial explain information avoidance to a greater extent. Trust in government and risk perception are negatively linked to information overload, reactance, and denial. Liberals' and conservatives' perceptions of risk and emotions differently activate information motives and behaviors. These findings provide theoretical and practical implications for health information management.

Social media creates a hostile environment for HIV health communication, fostering anonymous and fast digital knowledge sharing. However, research on users' digital health comminution on China's HIV narrative on global social media platforms, such as YouTube, remains limited. To advance the communication of health information globally, this study analyzes 255 videos and 3,184 comments (2006-2024) to explore the discourse surrounding China's HIV/AIDS prevention measures on YouTube and provide support for optimizing public health communication strategies. The research employs web scraping techniques to extract metadata and applies methods such as word cloud analysis, keyword analysis, semantic analysis, sentiment analysis, and Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic modeling. The results indicate that the main topics of public discussion focus on international cooperation, traditional medicine, and policy transparency. Semantic analysis reveals the impact of cultural factors on public perception. Sentiment analysis shows that positive sentiment is concentrated on prevention effectiveness and international cooperation, while negative sentiment focuses on policy transparency and insufficient information disclosure. The LDA analysis identifies five core themes: international cooperation, cultural factors, policy transparency, the role of traditional medicine, and the effectiveness of public health policies. The findings suggest that public perceptions of China's prevention measures are complex, highlighting the need to optimize communication strategies and improve policy transparency to enhance international recognition and support.

This case study examines the United Chinese Americans Wellness, Advocacy, Voices, Education, and Support (UCA WAVES) initiative as a culturally responsive, systems-based model for community mental health. Guided by a hybrid framework integrating Culturally Responsive Theory of Change (CRToC) and Community-Based System Dynamics (CBSD), we analyze how interdependent subsystems (e.g. advocacy, storytelling, culturally adapted psychoeducation, peer support) reinforce one another to reduce stigma, build trust, enhance sustained engagement, and drive policy change despite resource constraints. Theoretically, the case illustrates how systems design and cultural responsiveness can align micro-, meso-, and macro-level changes to increase intervention resilience. Practically, it offers strategies for integrating digital and in-person engagement, leveraging volunteer networks, and fostering multi-sector collaboration.

The model of culture-centric narratives in health promotion (CNHP) is argued to be most effective for homogenous cultural communities. This study a) compares the impact of narratives designed to speak to two different cultures (i.e. Latindad v. white, Anglo-Saxon culture in the Midwest), and b) examines the potential influence of acculturation on those narrative effects. English-proficient, Latino-identifying adult participants living in the Midwest of the United States (n = 189) were randomly assigned to one of the two narratives about a family's struggles during COVID-19. Participants exposed to the culture-centric narrative found the characters more culturally similar to themselves than those exposed to the white, Anglo-Saxon narrative (t (212) = 3.22, Mean Diff. = .45, SE = .14, p = .001). Some evidence was also found to suggest that acculturation may influence character engagement (F (5, 178) = 2.81, R² = .10, p = .003). Implications based on these findings may expand the potential application of the CNHP model, as we discuss the heterogeneity of cultural groups and the impact of demographic representation versus the presentation of cultural values like familismo.