Health Communication Specialists Research Articles

Public health community engagement with Asian populations in British Columbia during COVID-19: towards a culture-centered approach

ObjectivesCOVID-19 has posed significant challenges to those who endeavour to provide equitable public health information and services. We examine how community leaders, advocates, and public health communication specialists have approached community engagement among Asian immigrant and diaspora communities in British Columbia throughout the pandemic.MethodsQualitative interviews with 27 participants working with Asian communities in a healthcare, community service, or public health setting, inductively coded and analyzed following the culture-centred approach to health communication, which focuses on intersections of structure, culture, and agency.ResultsParticipants detailed outreach efforts aimed at those who might not be reached by conventional public health communication strategies. Pre-existing structural barriers such as poverty, racial disparities, and inequitable employment conditions were cited as complicating Asian diaspora communities’ experience of the pandemic. Such disparities exacerbated the challenges of language barriers, information overload, and rapidly shifting recommendations. Participants suggested building capacity within existing community service and public health outreach infrastructures, which were understood to be too lean to meet community needs, particularly in a pandemic setting.ConclusionA greater emphasis on collaboration is key to the provision of health services and information for these demographic groups. Setting priorities according to community need, in direct collaboration with community representatives, and further integrating pre-existing bonds of trust within communities into public health communication and engagement strategies would facilitate the provision of more equitable health information and services. This mode of engagement forgoes the conventional focus on individual behaviour change, and focuses instead on fostering community connections. Such an approach harmonizes with community support work, strengthening the capacity of community members to secure health during public health emergencies.

Establishing a COVID-19 lemmatized word list for journalists and ESP learners

The aim of this research is two-fold; first, to explore the most frequent COVID-19 inspired words in medical news reporting contexts, and second, to classify them into different categories. This paper adopts a corpus-based approach to build a lemmatized academic word list (AWL) inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic. Factiva was used to retrieve the pandemic-related articles published in News Rx from January 1 - October 31, 2020. A total number of 18,249,093-word corpus was compiled. The corpus linguistic software program Wordsmith (WS-6) (Scott, 2012) was used to generate a word list based on the complied corpus. Subsequent to compiling, lemmatizing, and analyzing the AWL, six categories were identified, namely, acronyms and abbreviation, diseases, COVID-19, biology, medicine, and scientific disciplines, all of which are of essential use for media workers, ESP learners of journalism, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, and allied health sciences. Building such a discipline-specific glossary will be of special pedagogical value for health journalists, textbook writers and curriculum designers, instructors, and ESP learners in the health sciences field. One of the major contributions of this research is establishing lemmas of a large set of AWL. This set can be utilized by news media workers, health communication specialists, and ESP learners. Lemmatization will ensure rapid dissemination of the word list and its integration in the linguistic system through derivation and other word-formation processes.

Competencies for Health Communication Specialists: Survey of Health Communication Educators and Practitioners

ABSTRACT For more than two decades, health communication educators and practitioners have been working toward establishing a competency model to guide health communication education. This article reports the results of a survey to identify competencies for health communication specialists with master’s degrees. To prepare the survey, a working group drafted a competency list through reviewing the literature and soliciting feedback from attendees at a professional society meeting, resulting in lists of items reflecting 18 knowledge domains, 11 skill sets, and 14 application bundles labeled “abilities.” The survey asked participants to rate the 43 items in terms of their importance and provide their opinions about the preparation of health communication specialists. The survey was disseminated online through professional associations and completed by 142 participants (74 educators and 68 practitioners). Nearly all of the 43 items were rated “somewhat important” or higher. The lists were reduced to 10 knowledge domains, three skill sets, and five abilities through factor analyses. Replication of the findings and triangulation with studies employing different research methods will help advance this line of inquiry.

Expanding communication of acoustical knowledge around the globe: Examples of outreach and the use of social media

For five decades, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has studied the effects of noise and disseminated public health information on hearing health. Today, the public expects greater transparency, responsiveness, and accountability, and organizations must respond with authenticity and engagement to maintain the public’s confidence. Social media channels have emerged as an effective platform for public health communication. While health communication specialists are integral to framing and delivering appropriate messages, scientists cannot remain disconnected from this process. Subject matter experts are uniquely positioned to leverage these tools to communicate their science directly to the public in a timely manner. This lecture will focus on NIOSH’s recent outreach and science communication efforts to reach the general public and include results of the Wiki4 Year Of Sound 2020 effort. This and several other examples are part of collaborative outreach activities with the CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health and other governmental agencies, several professional organizations (including the Acoustical Society of America), and the World Health Organization. [The findings and conclusions in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.]

Sara Alert: An enduring national resource to support public health monitoring & disease containment

BackgroundPublic health agencies had to respond swiftly to the novel coronavirus that emerged in 2019 (COVID-19) to try to contain the virus, which requires early identification of new cases. Monitoring exposed individuals is labor intensive and available tools are often limited. MITRE, a company that operates federally funded research and development centers for the U.S. government, rapidly developed a configurable monitoring tool that allows public health authorities to monitor potentially exposed individuals in their jurisdictions.MethodsA team, including public health leaders, field epidemiologists, software engineers, and health communication specialists, was quickly assembled to design and develop an open source, disease-independent monitoring tool called Sara Alert. Outreach to key public health stakeholders, including partner organizations and local and state health departments, was conducted early for requirements gathering and to validate assumptions. Public health law experts were consulted regarding data privacy and security.ResultsBy four weeks, a minimally viable monitoring tool was available for testing by public health partners. Exposed individuals can be enrolled and reminded daily to enter a temperature and any symptoms by web or mobile interface, SMS messaging or phone. Public health officials monitor and can quickly take action if symptoms consistent with COVID-19 are reported of if there is failure to report within a configurable time frame. Dashboards provide insight into aggregated data appropriate to level of view.ConclusionsSara Alert serves as a force multiplier that supports disease containment and allows resources to be directed where they are most needed. Successful development was possible because key stakeholders across public health practice were consulted early. Sara Alert is available, free, to state and local public health departments and serves as an enduring resource easily configured for the next public health emergency.Key messages Sara Alert serves as a force multiplier that supports disease containment and allows resources to be directed where they are most needed.Sara Alert serves as an enduring resource easily configured for the next public health emergency.

Social Health Content and Activity on Facebook

Facebook (FB) is a popular communication medium and community building tool for health outreach, promotion, and support groups for patients with chronic and rare conditions. Medical writers and health communication specialists are often tasked to write the content and support community interactions in health-related FB interventions. However, studies have reported mixed results at sustaining patient participation and engagement in FB interventions. Questions remain about the relationship between health behavior and FB usage and best strategies for evaluating health-related FB interventions. Furthermore, few studies examine health-related FB usage of people not designated as patients, which might help identify native activities that can sustain participants’ interest in and engagement with FB interventions. This study examines offline and online health-related activities of FB to identify characteristics shared by people who use FB for health-related purposes. The data from 455 users indicate that offline social health activities do not transfer online; privacy issues, interaction preferences, and differences between FB and offline networks may be barriers. FB campaigns and interventions should have modest and focused goals, such as supplementing offline activities and increasing preexisting FB activity. Designing FB interventions for networks and social groups with preexisting emotional ties and trust would be ideal.

Health Communication as a Public Health Training and Workforce Development Issue

Effective communication is one of the core competencies for public health professionals and is required for local health department (LHD) accreditation. Public health communication specialists play a critical role as conduits of health information, particularly with regard to managing relationships with media and the message that is ultimately represented by news outlets. However, capacity for engagement with traditional media in community health improvement at the local level has not been well-described. As part of a larger study examining the use and impact of the County Health Rankings in North Carolina, LHD media staffing and interaction with traditional media were examined through a cross-sectional, online survey, administered to North Carolina LHDs. Results indicate that most LHDs in North Carolina have staff designated toworkwithmedia, but few have dedicated staff or staffwith an educational background in mass communication. Most communication staff enter their position with less than one year of experience, though almost all receive some training once on the job. Press releases are issued relatively infrequently, which implies that media engagement and message management are underdeveloped at the local level. These results suggest that health communication specialists are underutilized in LHDs and these skills should be emphasized in LHD hiring practices and in public health workforce development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emergency Communication Challenges in Response to Hurricane Katrina: Lessons from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

In response to Hurricane Katrina's extensive destruction and related public health threats, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) deployed more than 1,000 staff to its emergency operations center and to affected areas. Among them were members of CDC's Emergency Communication System. This paper describes the strategies and tactics used by health communication specialists during the pre-event, response, and post-event stages to address a range of emergency communication exigencies. It highlights three difficult challenges for CDC communication specialists during Hurricane Katrina: rapid dissemination of health messages; adaptation of health messages for diverse audiences, locations, and circumstances; and phasing of key risk messages during the emergency response.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Cost-Effectiveness Analysis

Communication is at the heart of behavior change programs in developing countries. It is hard to imagine a program designed to bring about some type of change in behavior or health status that does not utilize at least some type of directed communication. How effective are these interventions however in bringing about the desired change? And at what cost? This special issue of the Journal of Health Communication examines the state of the art for addressing the familiar question What is the bang for the buck? We expect this issue to be of interest to two main audiences: (1) health communication specialists interested in designing the most effective programs on limited budgets and (2) researchers/evaluators interested in applying state-of-the-art methods for conducting cost-effectiveness analysis of communication programs for behavior change. Health communication programs aim to bring about change in individual behaviors and social norms using some combination of (1) mass media (2) community-level interventions (e.g. community mobilization) and (3) interpersonal communication/ counseling. Programs today tend to incorporate the highly effective elements of entertainment education. Earlier evaluations often measured the effects of a program consisting of a few or even a single communication channel in a limited geographical area. Todays communication programs however often use a more comprehensive approach consisting of multiple mutually reinforcing media. (excerpt)

Matters of the mind, heart, and soul

D r Martha Rogers is a Canadian nurse-futurist whose research re- veals that adult responses to learning about the future can be classified 3 ways. Accord- ing to Dr Rogers, learning about the future involves patterns of the mind, heart, and soul. 1,2 Future thinking requires a keen mind that understands and appreciates the complexity of systems thinking; taken se- riously, future-oriented discussions and consequences of human action generate strong feelings; and finally, learning and wondering about the future taps existen- tial anxieties and confronts people with questions of meaning, purpose, and soul. scenarios. Dr Rogers suggests use of the fol. lowing questions 3 to aid reflection: How plausible does the scenario seem? What thoughts does it bring to mind? What feel- ings does it generate? What are the impli- cations for society, health care, and nurs- ing? If parts of the scenario are desirable, what actions need to be taken to increase the chances of the scenario happening? If parts are undesirable, what actions need to be taken to prevent them from happening? The first 2020 scenario is Technology Eclipses Care. In this story, health care is driven by technology. Hospitals become high-tech centers. Sensors, monitors, voice-activated equipment, and smart ma- chines monitor and adjust care param- eters. Genetic engineering decreases or eliminates disease development. A cast of health supporters develops, which in- cludes massage therapists, palliative care assistants, elder care assistants, health communication specialists, and child de- velopment specialists. Nursing disappears. Analysis reveals that the reason for nursing's disappearance was that nursing was defined by skills and tasks rather than by knowledge. The second 2020 scenario is Control, Manage, and Measure. In this scenario, social programs are eliminated because of debt. The business of health care is orga- nized around programs of managed care. Health activities are centralized. Genetic fingerprints result in predicted illness pat- terns. People are given personalized care maps based on genetic analysis. Compli- ance with the care maps is monitored via personal health record smart cards. Persons who do not follow the care map are re- quired to finance their own health care. Doctors choose whom to hire. i The num- ber of nurses on the teams decrease because others are cheaper to employ. A small band of nurses who believe in the power of nurs- ing continues to exist.

Obstacles and opportunities in designing cancer control communication research for farmworkers on the Delmarva Peninsula.

Little is known about the incidence of cancer among farmworker populations or about effective strategies for communicating with farmworkers about cancer prevention. Some studies suggest that farmworkers may have unusually high incidences of skin and cervical cancers. With these two cancers as the focus, a group of interviewers, researchers, and health communication specialists set out to create, implement, and evaluate a cancer control demonstration project geared toward farmworkers. In 1994, a situation analysis was conducted to identify constraints and opportunities for providing farmworkers with cancer control information and services. The situation analysis provided valuable information to aid in developing intervention and evaluation strategies. This paper outlines how and why the situation analysis was conducted and what was learned with regard to the farmworker population on the Delmarva Peninsula. Living conditions and the local availability of cancer control services are described. Obstacles to conducting research and interventions with farmworkers are highlighted. Based on what was learned, recommendations are made for designing cancer control research and intervention for farmworkers.

The status of clinic-based STD patient education: the need for a commitment to innovation in health communication.

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, STD 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.

Competencies for the Health Communication Specialist of the 21st Century

This article reports the results of an expert working group convened to define competencies required to function effectively as a health communication specialist. Participants were surveyed before the working group meeting on a range of issues related to training master's-level public health communication specialists. Survey responses were used to initiate the discussion at a subsequent two-day working group meeting. Survey and working group results clearly indicated that competence in this arena includes aspects of theory and practice. A pedagogical framework emerged, in which types of theories and practice-oriented skills were specified at both the individual and societal levels of analysis. This framework can be used to guide the development of graduate-level curricula in health communication.

AIDS Communication: What Predicts Health Professionals' Decisions?

Theoretical models from the persuasion/health communication literature have identified many components such as message appeal, audience attributes and channel characteristics that need to be addressed as a prerequisite to designing any successful AIDS communication program, but a variety of models compete in the marketplace of ideas, and many are divergent with respect to focus and to specific recommendations. The question then arises of what theoretical perspectives predominate in AIDS communication practice and why. This article explores the decisions and theoretical perspectives behind the thinking of health and health communication specialists who were asked to design an AIDS communication program aimed at a target audience of students. Results show two different theoretical predispositions: a fact-based formal teaching approach and a skills-oriented approach using interactive methods. Preference for one of these over the other is predicted by level of education, religion, and institutional affiliation.

An Analysis of AIDS Brochures Directed at Intravenous Drug Users

Intravenous (IV) drug users are currently the second largest group to have contracted AIDS in the United States and Europe. To reach these individuals, health communication specialists have relied on brochures and leaflets, but little is known about the content or effectiveness of such brochures. The present study, guided by theory and research on persuasive communications,was designed to provide a systematic appraisal of these materials. A content analysis of 25 representative brochures directed at IV drug users and their sex partners revealed that the brochures contained many facts about the risk and preventive strategies associated with the spread of AIDS among IV drug users; however, they failed to provide self-efficacy information that could convince recipients that they are personally capable of undertaking the recommended actions. Other findings and implications are discussed.