Measurement in Health Communication

Abstract

This chapter describes the diverse range of measurement in health communication research by emphasizing a few key areas receiving heavy research attention. It identifies broad context areas within health communication that have been subject to notably heavy research and measurement activity over the last decade across a range of journals. These areas include health communication research in psychological and public health contexts, medical and clinical contexts, media and messaging contexts, and uncertainty and information seeking. Many heavily researched health communication concepts and related measures are derived from psychology and were used in public health contexts before or concurrent to their use in health communication scholarship. Patient–provider communication scales continue to receive a great deal of research attention. Uncertainty/information seeking is one of the richest areas for the development of theory in modern health communication research. Health information seeking and variations on uncertainty are likely to continue to be central to health communication research in the near future.