Effective Communication Approaches Research Articles

National Extension Workshop Developing effective risk and crisis communication approaches in the poultry industry

The poultry industry, like every other industry, is susceptible to a wide variety of crises. In this paper, the Discourse of Renewal is presented as an empirically tested approach to help poultry organizations and the poultry industry prepare for, manage, and learn from crises. The key parts of the Discourse of Renewal provide poultry industry and organization leaders practical communication strategies for use in their preparation and management of crises. The theory also provides counterintuitive reasoning to help leaders build their knowledge and competencies in preparing for and managing crises. The Discourse of Renewal, then, is a normative theory that provides theoretically grounded guidelines for poultry industry leaders to prepare for, learn from, and communicate effectively during a crisis. This essay provides a clear understanding of the Discourse of Renewal and its applications to crisis planning, preparation, response, and learning from a crisis. This essay also provides poultry industry leaders and others the necessary background to develop guidelines for preparing to manage any type of crisis in the industry.

The most effective and essential way of improving the oral health status education

Oral health is an essential component of health throughout life. Two major oral diseases, dental caries and periodontal diseases, are both ancient and widespread. The oral health situation analysis demands that the preventive program be implemented in both the developing and developed countries. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of delivering the primary preventive strategies through non dental and dental personnel. To develops the preventive package for improving the oral health status of children utilizing the different communication approaches. To find out the most feasible and effective communication approach for delivering the preventive package. To evaluate the changes produced in terms of various soft and hard core parameters after 6 months of implementation of the oral-health preventive package in the school children of different study groups as compared to control. This study was conducted on total of 972 children in the age group of 5-16 years who were randomly selected from four schools of Chandigarh and Panchkula to evaluate and compare the prevalence of dental caries and knowledge, attitude, and practice about oral health. The results of various parameters indicate that direct communication through the dentist proved to be the most effective communication approach as compared to the other two indirect communication approaches.

Reaching a hard-to-reach population such as asylum seekers and resettled refugees in Canada

Global migration of people, whether voluntary or forced, means health-care professionals and staff need to communicate effectively as they care for progressively more diverse communities, often with specific needs, varied language abilities and literacy. Refugees and asylum seekers are forced migrants. They may have health needs related to their refugee status and may not have the language abilities or skills common among other types of migrants.1 Although the proportion of refugees who resettle in developed nations under the United Nations convention is relatively small, most become citizens in their host country.2 The challenge for health professionals in resettlement communities is how to reach these newcomers, in particular refugees and asylum seekers who may be isolated by language or lack of knowledge about the local health-care system. An important way to influence the health of populations is through building relationships; for this, effective communication is essential. Clear communication enables trust and mutual understanding about expectations regarding health behaviour, needs and services.3 Communication in health care is important for three reasons: (i) exchanging important information about health; (ii) promoting ongoing care to restore health after treatment for illness; and (iii) relationship building for ongoing health maintenance. Effective communication approaches for providing public health information are particularly important for “hard-to-reach” populations such as forced migrants as their usual sources of information and family support are often fractured.4 In many resettlement countries, an industry in cultural competency/sensitivity training has evolved, in part to improve the way health workers meet the needs of their increasingly diverse populations.5,6 These initiatives aim to reduce health disparities related to race and ethnicity. Communication skills (both verbal and non-verbal) are at the centre of cultural competency training, which is now part of many medical and nursing education curricula. In addition, standards or guidelines for practice have been introduced by many professional associations since the mid-1990s. The importance of these skills must not be underestimated. Health professionals educated before these changes may be inadequately prepared to work with diverse populations. Newcomers who are unfamiliar with the health-care system may interpret relatively innocent events as evidence of discrimination or racism if they are not clearly explained by health providers. For example, waiting in an emergency department to be seen by a relatively junior physician may be interpreted negatively as discrimination (EO Wahoush, unpublished data, 2009). Negative experiences may result in subsequent avoidance of seeking health care. On the other hand, if verbal communication is difficult because of language barriers, patients can interpret non-verbal cues and so understand the intent of the health-care professional. New approaches are needed for public health communication to reach newcomers and other hard-to-reach populations. In Canada, the ethnic media is underused as a vehicle for health information even though this media is a direct link into potentially isolated newcomer communities. In addition, health information and advice systems such as Telehealth Ontario are not well known among newcomers in general although this free telephone service provides advice from a health professional in more than 100 languages. New targeted marketing approaches using different communication vehicles may improve reach into newcomer communities as preferences for specific types of communication media differ among cultural groups and migration status.7 Cultural competency or sensitivity training may be helpful as long as stereotypes are not promoted and participants develop knowledge of the potential range of values and beliefs that influence diet, perceptions of illness, recognition of need for care and preference for type of health worker. The challenge remains how to help health professionals to be open to the differing views and expectations about health among their diverse clientele while avoiding stereotypes which may blind them to the individuality of their patients and communities. A renewed focus on communication skills and approaches for health-care professionals and public health information might provide better outcomes than cultural competency training alone. ■

Rural healthcare providers question the practicality of motivational interviewing and report varied physical activity counseling experience

Objective To evaluate rural healthcare providers (HCP) physical activity (PA) counseling experiences and perceptions of motivational interviewing (MI), a behavioral counseling style, prior to MI training. Methods Four moderator-led focus groups were conducted among rural HCPs providing care to rural African American women with Type 2 diabetes. Questions about experiences with PA counseling in this patient population were asked. Following a DVD demonstration of a MI patient/provider consultation, MI impressions were solicited. Focus groups data were transcribed verbatim. Content-based analysis was conducted using qualitative data analysis software, Atlas.ti., and thematic coding by two analysts. Results Thirty-three HCPs (64% nurses) participated. Fifty-five percent reported little or no PA counseling comfort due to either the lack of knowledge of PA recommendations or individual challenges in being physically active. MI was viewed as a potentially effective communication approach (positive impression theme). However, HCPs voiced concern about the limited input of the provider during the MI consultation (disadvantage theme) and the feasibility of implementing MI in healthcare settings (disadvantage theme). Conclusion Future studies should evaluate whether integrating, into MI training, information about previous PA counseling experiences and impressions of MI from rural HCPs truly increases the effectiveness of MI training and subsequent PA interventions.

Working Together to Address Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

Working Together to Address Challenges to the Teaching of Evolution

Campground Manager and User Perceptions of Risk Associated with Negative Human–Black Bear Interactions

Negative human–black bear interactions in New York's Adirondack Park campgrounds pose risk management challenges. Communication is one tool available to modify human behavior and reduce associated risks, but knowledge of constructs influencing risk perception among key stakeholder groups is needed to design effective risk communication approaches. We interviewed managers (n = 14) and users (n = 40) at 7 Adirondack Park campgrounds to characterize risk perceptions between groups. We identified eight constructs influencing risk perceived by users and/or managers with three constructs congruent between groups, and five constructs divergent. We discuss how congruencies and shared understanding across groups, and explicit recognition by risk communicators of differences between groups, may offer opportunities to maximize successes of risk communication efforts in campgrounds.

Health risks of electromagnetic fields. Part III: Risk analysis.

The management of potential health risks from electromagnetic (EM) fields presents both scientific and nonscientific challenges. When the scientific evidence is ambiguous, as is the case with EM fields, expert judgment of this evidence becomes particularly important. This article provides biomedical researchers with a comprehensive assessment of the status of EM health risk based on our two previous articles [Parts I and II, Critical Reviews in Biomedical Engineering, Volume 31, Issue 3]. Ambiguous evidence also necessitates rigorous public debate. This article also discusses effective risk communication approaches that play a key role in the EM risk issue. Because of uncertainty about health risks associated with EMF exposure, the public is more likely to experience difficulty in evaluating the available information and rely more on perceptions than facts when drawing conclusions. Even the most effective risk communication approaches are not likely to clarify all of the subtleties surrounding EM fields as a population health issue. Thus it is essential that all stakeholders involved in this issue participate in developing consensus solutions.

The Future of Early Communication and Language Intervention

This article presents a vision of the future of early communication and language intervention efforts. In this vision, all young children experience highly responsive environments for as much of the time as possible from infancy onward, communication and language delays and disorders are routinely identified as close to their genesis as possible, and optimal intervention strategies are implemented as early as possible. To realize this vision, we must achieve the following on a broad scale: (a) increase support for responsive interaction styles among all parents, childcare workers, teachers, and early interventionists; (b) expand efforts to identify communication delays and disorders as early as possible; (c) move forward with the development of truly effective communication and language intervention approaches; and (d) transform research findings into day-to-day practice. The realization of this vision will necessitate a truly transdisciplinary approach to both research and practice.

New approach for effective communication in pharmacovigilance

The need to embrace a much more ambitious, professional and scientific approach to communications in pharmacovigilance was the loud and clear message given by Mr Bruce Hugman, managing director of EQUUS and a communications consultant to the Uppsala Monitoring Centre (UMC), * to delegates at the WHO’s 50th Anniversary Symposium on ‘The Current State of Pharmacovigilance - A Critical Examination’ [ Stockholm, Sweden; December 1998 ]. Mr Hugman outlined the challenges that communication in pharmacovigilance currently faces, and described the steps that the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) is taking to address the problems. Other speakers during this session focused on opportunities for improving communication of pharmacovigilance information through education, and on the use of the Internet as a tool for communicating information on drug safety.

Enhancing Communication and Language Development in Young Children With Developmental Delays and Disorders

In this article, we present an overview of past and present research on early communication and language intervention at the John F. Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development. First, we present three basic premises that inform most research on early communication and language intervention at the Kennedy Center. Second, we present brief summaries of seven lines of contemporary research by Kennedy Center investigators that have and continue to influence the development of effective communication and language intervention approaches. Several basic findings that have emerged from this