Journal of Health Communication最新文献

Research on reactance to health promotion messages has focused almost exclusively on the freedom-threatening properties of language, with little attention paid to the visual elements of these messages. For instance, while health campaigns often feature images of people, researchers rarely systematically study whether the characteristics of these people influence perceived freedom threat and reactance. In this experiment, we tested the impact of both verbal and visual message features on U.S. adults' (N = 856) reactions to a public service announcement (PSA) about wearing a mask to slow the spread of COVID-19. We varied the forcefulness of the verbal appeal as well as the nonverbal gesture of the PSA models (i.e. hand raised in a "stop" gesture vs. in a neutral position). Compared to a courteous verbal appeal, a forceful verbal appeal produced lower masking intentions via psychological reactance. However, the forceful gesture was not perceived as freedom-threatening. Unexpectedly, demographic characteristics of the depicted models (gender and race) also influenced reactions to the PSAs. These findings raise important questions for future research on the effects of visual features of health promotion messages.

This study identifies and analyzes X (formerly Twitter) posts related to 14 e-cigarette use prevention campaigns from 2014 to 2020, assessing message volume, content, sources, potential reach and engagement. Using supervised machine learning, we classified 618,965 tweets, finding 43% contained opposition messaging. Two regional campaigns received the highest levels of opposition, with over 99% of related tweets classified as opposition. However, prevention/neutral messages exhibited 92% higher potential reach than opposition messages. Geolocation analysis suggested that regional campaigns may have struggled to focus their impact within targeted jurisdictions. These findings illustrate the dual role of social media as both an amplifier of prevention messages and a platform for oppositional narratives, underscoring the need for public health practitioners to develop adaptive strategies to enhance the impact of digital campaigns.

Communication professionals in Federal agencies must have a seat at their agency's budget formulation table - to inform the budget process from the beginning and to advise on funding for the communications required to achieve program goals. This is one of nine lessons learned from US Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS) systems change efforts that were applied to help create the "We Can Do This" COVID-19 Public Education Media Campaign (Campaign), and these lessons were presented in a 2022 Journal of Health Communication article. Now that substantial evaluation data are available in eight recent research articles to verify the Campaign's success, this lesson can be revisited to identify more specific ways in which it can be applied, along with two additional lessons identified from the Campaign implementation. In light of the Campaign's success, these learnings all can contribute to creating a new framework for guiding quality USDHHS health communication activities in the future - inspired also by four previously-published communication frameworks. The new framework can then be used to build an enhanced structure within USDHHS to handle future public education media campaigns and other communication activities, a matter of particular urgency given the likelihood of a future public health and humanitarian crisis requiring rapid and effective communication responses.

Prescription opioid misuse has had a substantial impact on morbidity and mortality in the United States, but proper disposal of unused medications can reduce the risk of misuse. This commentary reflects on potential explanations for our failure to detect effects of a mailed communication intervention promoting the use of prescription medication take-back boxes among a rural population of adults. This field experiment included adults (Intervention: N = 3,255; Comparison: N = 3,325) in six counties in Mississippi. Pretest and posttest surveys measured use of take-back boxes, intention to use take-back boxes, and Reasoned Action Approach predictors of intention: attitudes, descriptive norms, injunctive norms, and perceived behavioral control. Analyses indicated that the intervention failed to increase participants' intention to use prescription medication take-back boxes. Possible explanations for these null effects include intervention design, low response rates, methodological challenges, and stigma related to the topic area. This commentary provides insights into these explanations and implications for health communication campaigns.

Guided by literature on framing, this study explored how the presence of age labels in different message frames influenced message-evoked fear and anger responses, particularly for older adults with different levels of need for autonomy (NFA), which ultimately affected their physical activity intentions. The results of a three-factor between-subjects experiment, with message frame (gain versus loss) and age label (present versus absent) as manipulated variables and NFA (low versus medium versus high) as quasi-experiment variable (N = 237) revealed that loss-framed message evoked higher levels of fear and anger as compared to gain-framed message. Furthermore, the anger elicited by loss-framing was more pronounced when age labels were present, especially among older adults with low NFA. The moderated mediation analysis revealed that, among older adults with low NFA, loss-framed messages decreased physical activity intentions through message-evoked anger. Notably, this mediating effect was more pronounced when age labels were present.

This paper examines the efficacy of different messaging formats in the context of public health crises and emergencies in rural context. By analyzing usage statistics and user feedback, we assessed the effectiveness of various technology-mediated COVID-19 audio message formats (songs, expert interviews, endorsements, and dramas) delivered using the Amplio Talking Book device to rural communities in Ghana during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings indicate that different messaging formats resulted in varying levels of user engagement and interest. Shorter audio messages (1-5 minutes) and endorsements from credible and familiar community stakeholder significantly fostered trust and adoption. Establishing a consistent user feedback loop was essential for providing clarifications, addressing queries, and diffusing disinformation and misinformation, especially considering the unprecedented nature of the COVID-19 outbreak. Reflecting on these insights, we discuss effective strategies for creating engaging technology-mediated public health and behavior change messages during public health crises.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of effective communication to build and strengthen public trust in the field of public health. To address this need, we conducted virtual qualitative message testing via focus groups and individual in-depth interviews with a demographically and psychographically diverse mix of 100 English-speaking U.S. adults in March and April 2024. Following best practices in health literacy and plain language, we developed and tested 20 primary messages that focused on core values of the public health field and public health activities. Throughout message testing, participants demonstrated an unexpectedly limited or inaccurate understanding of public health, which shaped their reactions to messages. Although participants expressed positive reactions to some aspects of messages that humanize public health professionals, reflect audiences' lived experiences, provide clear and specific examples of public health activities, and highlight public health efforts within a local context, their limited or inaccurate understanding of public health made it difficult to assess message efficacy and resonance. After participants reviewed the messages, researchers observed that participants exhibited negligible shifts in their trust in the public health field and perceptions of its value and still had trouble articulating core public health concepts. Findings reveal substantial information gaps related to public health - that is, what public health is, what public health professionals do, and how it impacts lives and communities - and provide new insights about public health literacy and opportunities for developing effective messaging strategies about the public health field.

When stories have undesirable endings, readers often engage in replotting, meaning they imagine alternative plotlines that could change the unwanted ending. Recent research has found that both the cognitive and emotional components of replotting serve as mechanisms of narrative persuasion. Building on this work, the current study assessed if people who habitually replot are more persuaded by a tragic story ending than those who do not, testing hypotheses with melanoma narratives. Cognitive and emotional (i.e., anger, anxiety, sadness, and hope) aspects of replotting were tested as mechanisms of this proposed interaction. Participants (N = 432) were randomized into a 2 (protagonist death vs. survival) x 6 (specific melanoma story) between-subjects online narrative message experiment. Participants who habitually replot had significantly higher melanoma prevention intentions after reading a death (compared to a survival) ending. This effect was not present for other participants. However, counter to hypotheses, the cognitive and emotional aspects of actual replotting did not explain the effect, meaning habitual replotters were not more likely to replot the death ending or experience replotting emotion than other participants were. Future research is needed to determine why habitual replotters are more persuaded by unwanted story endings than other audience members are.