ABSTRACTS

Volume 1, Number 1
January-March 1996

Vol. 1, Num 1: Contents | Introduction | Up Front | Abstracts

The Field of Health Communication Today: An Up-to-Date Report
    E.M. Rogers

One important starting point for the field of health communication was the Stanford Heart Disease Prevention Program, a multiyear community intervention that began 25 years ago. Health communication is a specialty field of communication study that includes the media agenda-setting process for health issues; media advocacy for health; scientific communication among biomedical scientists; doctor-patient communication; and, particularly, the design and evaluation of preventive health communication campaigns, the focus of this article. Health communication study today is a well-established, expanding specialty in the United States and abroad.

The Status and Scope of Health Communication
    S.C. Ratzan, J. G. Payne, & C. Bishop

We examine the field of health communication with a multimethodological analysis, presenting a brief historical synopsis of the academic literature as well as the results of a survey administered to academicians who identified communication and health to be major fields of interest. After this descriptive backdrop of health communication, we offer a prescription for an ideal health communicator -- that is, one with an interdisciplinary background -- to use ethical, persuasive means to craft, deliver, and evaluate campaigns that promote good health and disease prevention; to plan, influence, and implement health policy; and to employ ethical decision making that will enhance he quality of life for individuals and communities throughout the globe.

Health Communication: Making the Most of New Media Technologies -- An International Overview
    M. A. Chamberlain

Not since the hundred years following Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in c. 1450 has there been such a tidal wave of change in the way humans communicate. We are moving from the Age of Mass Communication into the Age of Interactive Communication, in which many of the old communication models will be insufficient or redundant. The rate of diffusion of these new media technologies almost defies comprehension. The convergence of computer, telecommunication, and televisual technologies is presenting the consumer with a myriad of choices. The challenge for the communicator is to find a way through this maze and to ensure that the message is received. For the health communication professional, the urgency of the message often adds further difficulty to the task. Differing rates of diffusion internationally and a confusion of technologies do not make the problem any easier.

The Status of Clinic-Based STD Patient Education: The Need for a Commitment to Innovation in Health Communication
     W. DeJong, L O'Donnell, A. D. San Doval, & G. Juhn

Although knowledge of safer sex practices is increasing in high-risk populations, such as STD clinic patients, this knowledge does not often translate into behavior change. As a result, STC reinfection rates among clinic patients remain high, resulting in large numbers of return patient visits. As part of a study to evaluate strategies for improving clinic-based education for patients with STDs, we conducted formative research interviews with inner-city clinic managers or other key staff to identify opportunities for and barriers to enhancing STD patient education. These interviews revealed that most of the inner-city clinics had not introduced any new or innovative health communication strategies in the last several years. A primary barrier to innovation appeared to be the belief that patient needs were sufficiently addressed through one-on-one counseling, an assumption that does not take into account the limitations of this form of provider-patient communication. Another barrier was the emphasis placed on maintaining clinic flow, with little consideration given to how it might be altered to accommodate new educational approaches. We offer recommendations to encourage STD clinics to experiment with new and potentially more powerful health communication methods and to encourage the CDC and other funders to alter their STD service priorities toward improvements in health communication and education. We also offer steps that health communication specialists can take in helping clinics and funders move toward these goals.

Advances in Segmentation Modeling for Health Communication and Social Marketing Campaigns
    T.L. Albrecht & C. Bryant

Large-scale communications campaigns for health promotion and disease prevention involve analysis of audience demographic and psychographic factors for effective message targeting. A variety of segmentation modeling techniques, including tree-based methods such as Chi-squared Automatic Interaction Detection and logistic regression, are used to identify meaningful target groups within a large sample or population (N = 750-1,000+). Such groups are based on statistically significant combinations of factors (e.g., gender, marital status, and personality predispositions). The identification of groups or clusters facilitates message design in order to address the particular needs, attention patterns, and concerns of audience members within each group. We review current segmentation techniques, their contributions to conceptual development, and cost-effective decision making. Examples from a major study in which these strategies were used are provided from the Texas Women, Infants and Children Program's Comprehensive Social Marketing Program.

FORUM

Health Legacies from Franklin Roosevelt to Robert Dole, or How Medical and Health Care Issues Took Over the Nation's News
     S. G. Bloom

Coverage of medical and health care issues has become a staple of the American press. To explain today's saturation of such coverage, I present a political continuum from reporting on the health of President Franklin Roosevelt to that of presidential candidate Robert Dole. I suggest that the public can better be served by disclosures of medical records of political candidates as well as of elected officials.

Communicating to Promote Justice in the Modern Health Care System
    G.L. Kreps

The systemic prejudices and biases that often limit the effectiveness of health care delivery are examined. How the inherent imbalance in control between consumers and providers of health care, based on the micropolitics of sharing relevant health information, perpetuates a system of marginalization and alienation within health care delivery systems is discussed. Communication barriers that often confront many stigmatized groups of health care consumers, such as the poor, people with AIDS, minorities, the ill elderly, and women, are identified. Such prejudicial treatment is framed within a cultural ideologies model, leading to identification of communication strategies for promoting justice in the modern health care system and enhancing the quality of health care delivery.

BOOK REVIEW

Mack Lipkin, Jr., Samuel M. Putnam, and Aaron Lazare (eds.).
The Medical Interview: Clinical Care, Education, and Research. New York and Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 1995, 643 pp., $98.00.
Reviewed by Kerr L. White, M.D.