Journal of Health Communication最新文献

The use of recreational cannabis is becoming legal in more states across the United States. With that, many cannabis-infused products were developed, and regulation surrounding cannabis product packaging was created to ensure packaging was not especially appealing to young people. We conducted small group online focus groups and in-depth interviews with 28 Washington teens (13-17 years-old) about their perceptions of cannabis edible product packages, such as gummies and pretzels, and analyzed the data using thematic analysis. We found that many teens perceived cannabis packages to be appealing because of their aesthetics such as bright colors and the pictures on the package, as well as the lifestyles the products promoted. Additionally, we identified that teens with greater cannabis knowledge and product literacy were more skeptical of the cannabis product packages. Our findings have implications for health educators and policymakers. Efforts to include teen perspectives in the regulatory process could be beneficial, and prevention specialists may want to focus efforts on improving teens' cannabis knowledge and product literacy to empower them to be more critical of cannabis product packaging.

This study examines which types of perceived social norms are strongly associated with professional mental health help-seeking (PMHS), and whether and how such associations are moderated by evaluative identification among college students. We conducted an online survey with 638 Korean adults. Results show that general college students' perceived injunctive norms (β = .37, p < .001) have the strongest associations with intentions, followed by close friends' perceived descriptive norms (β = .22, p < .001). Also, there was a significant positive interaction between perceived injunctive norms among general college students and evaluative identification (β = .18, p < .001), between friends' perceived descriptive norms and evaluative identification (β = .07, p < .001), as well as between family perceived injunctive norms and evaluative identification (β = .13, p < .01). The findings suggest that distal reference group norms and evaluative identification are crucial in promoting PMHS.

While there is ample research on the influence of retracted scientific publications on author reputation, less is known about how a health organization's retraction of scientific guidance can impact public perceptions of the organization. This study centers on the aerosol guidance retraction of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2020. X/Twitter social media data were collected via ForSight from September 15 to October 8, 2020, with a machine learning algorithm specifically developed and used to detect sentiment toward the CDC. Regression analyses of the non-bot sample (N = 265,326) tested for differences in CDC sentiment across four stages: 1) baseline; 2) CDC guidance change; 3) CDC retraction of the prior guidance change; and 4) CDC reversion to a tempered form of the initial guidance change. The results show that sentiment toward the CDC increased from Time 1 to Time 2, then decreased for Time 3 with the "posted in error" retraction, but then increased for Time 4 back to a level similar to Time 2. That public perceptions of the CDC could improve after these changes in scientific guidance may be attributed to its self-report of the retraction and reporting that the retraction was a result of unintentional error. This study connects theories of reputation management and trust repair with the growing empirical research on retractions of published scientific research to provide a theoretical explanation for how a major public health organization can mitigate damage to its reputation in the short term.

Black women suffer more complications and birthing harms compared to other race-ethnic groups. Even when birthing equity initiatives are implemented, many Black families choose to work with a Black doula to reduce harms linked to obstetric racism. Most Black doulas described their role as helping women have the kind of birth they want; however, problems doulas experience in communicating with other birthing team members are not well understood. Situated in the interprofessional team communication model, this study asked fifty Black doulas to respond to two open-ended questions about their communication experiences with other birthing care providers. Thematic analysis identified six themes including efforts to establish legitimacy as a doula, responding to provider use of power strategies, negotiating roles and responsibilities on the birthing team, conflict from difference in birthing philosophies, impact of hospital regulation of doulas on their practice, and how doula advocacy was conducted. While Black doulas reported successful communication with other providers, they also described microaggressions experienced from members of predominantly White birthing teams. Preemptive communication strategies that doulas used to encourage other birthing team members to accept them onto the team were identified. Suggestions for how Black doulas can be more fully integrated into birthing teams were also presented.

Communication scholars warn against focusing on individual behaviors when discussing health issues, arguing that doing so can reduce affect and policy support. Although COVID-19 outcomes are linked to structural barriers to treatment, policy interventions appear to improve outcomes for vulnerable groups. Thus, strategic messages must promote public understanding of social determinants and policy support related to COVID-19. Using concepts from attribution theory and narrative persuasion, we employed an experiment (N = 435) testing the effects of personal responsibility (high, moderate, and low) on affective engagement and COVID-19 policy support. Namely, the manuscript examines (a) affective responses to characters displaying varying levels of personal responsibility for COVID-19 prevention, (b) the impact of these affective responses on policy support, and (c) the moderating role of audience political ideology on these effects. Analyses revealed that a highly responsible protagonist elicited empathy and perceived similarity, increasing policy support. While participants' political ideology moderated protagonist responsibility on perceived similarity, a more responsible protagonist evoked empathy independently of political leaning. Theoretical and practical implications are offered.

This study examines the role of need for affect (NFA) and perceived prior knowledge about HPV in processing messages about the vaccine. In an experiment with 479 US parents of unvaccinated children, participants were assigned to one of the three conditions (narrative, non-narrative, or no message). Results showed that perceived prior knowledge and NFA were positively correlated with transportation, vaccination intentions, and information-seeking. The effects of NFA were stronger in the narrative condition. For parents with low perceived prior knowledge, NFA was linked to transportation and intentions in the narrative condition, but this was not observed for those with high prior knowledge or in non-narrative conditions. The study discusses its theoretical and practical implications.

The goals of vaccination communication include designing communication interventions to reduce vaccine hesitancy and tools of surveillance to identify communities where hesitancy is high and where interventions could be targeted. Artificial intelligence (AI) tools have been proposed for use for both tasks, but there is relatively little evidence of them being implemented for use in public health practice. We examine how recent advances in AI are being proposed for use in surveillance and communication interventions, discuss the barriers to implementation, and recommend ways to overcome barriers and avoid unintended consequences.

This scoping review synthesizes evidence from 40 studies on theater's role in health promotion. Key findings reveal that non-interactive theater (e.g. traditional scripted performances) predominates and is used widely across contexts. Interactive theater (e.g. forum theater) is primarily employed for healthy lifestyle promotion. Community-based interventions target broad age ranges (7-94 years) and emphasize disease prevention (e.g. HIV/cancer), while school-based projects focus on children/adolescents and social health (e.g. bullying). Theater consistently improves health-related knowledge, attitudes, intentions, and behaviors. The gaps of current literature include underrepresentation of marginalized populations (e.g. immigrants and LGBTQI+), limited focus on mental health, and over-reliance on quantitative evaluation methods. Longitudinal impact assessment is rare. The findings underscore theater's versatility in addressing health topics but highlight the need for culturally tailored frameworks, mixed-methods evaluation, and inclusive co-design approaches. These findings guide health practitioners, artists, and policymakers in developing effective theater-based health promotion.

Co-design, a collaborative approach where end-users are actively involved in design processes, has gained traction in health communication. Its integration into health communication initiatives holds promise for amplifying the voices of people with disability. Despite this, its application remains inconsistent. This scoping literature review explores how people with disability are included, when and through what methods to co-design health communication interventions. Principles of importance are considered and identified. Thirty articles published between 2018 and 2023 were reviewed. The review identified a range of methods used in health communication initiatives, with people with disability engaging at different stages and in different ways. While co-design offers potential for improved health communication, challenges such as unpredictable outcomes, diversity of participant needs, and barriers to full engagement persist. Improved transparency and consistency in reporting co-design processes are recommended to enhance rigor and effectiveness of future initiatives.

Patient-facing materials in gender-affirming surgery are often written at a level higher than the NIH-recommended eighth grade reading level for patient education materials. In efforts to make patient resources more accessible, ChatGPT has successfully optimized linguistic content for patients seeking care in various medical fields. This study aims to evaluate and compare the ability of large language models (LLMs) to analyze readability and simplify online patient-facing resources for gender-affirming procedures. Google Incognito searches were performed on 15 terms relating to gender-affirming surgery. The first 20 text results were analyzed for reading level difficulty by an online readability calculator, Readability Scoring System v2.0 (RSS). Eight easily accessible LLMs were used to assess texts for readability and simplify texts to an eighth grade reading level, which were reevaluated by the RSS. Descriptive statistics, t-tests, and one-way ANOVA tests were used for statistical analyses. Online resources were written with a mean reading grade level of 12.66 ± 2.54. Google Gemini was most successful at simplifying texts (8.39 ± 1.49), followed by Anthropic Claude (9.53 ± 1.85) and ChatGPT 4 (10.19 ± 1.83). LLMs had a greater margin of error when assessing readability of feminizing and facial procedures and when simplifying genital procedures (p < .017) Online texts on gender-affirming procedures are written with a readability more challenging than is recommended for patient-facing resources. Certain LLMs were better at simplifying texts than others. Providers should use caution when using LLMs for patient education in gender-affirming care, as they are prone to variability and bias.