Health-related Words Research Articles

Health-related word recognition and pronunciation by patients in Gauteng, South Africa in English and native languages.

Low health literacy has been found to affect people's ability to take care of their own health and follow the principles of disease prevention. Incomprehension of health education and healthcare instructions may lead to poor health outcomes. The aim of the study was to describe and compare a sample of primary healthcare patient's ability to recognise and pronounce health-related words in English and in his or her native language. The study was conducted in 12 primary healthcare (PHC) clinics in Gauteng, South Africa. A prospective, quantitative, comparative research design using a survey method was used to assess the ability to recognise and pronounce health-related words of 401 respondents using the REALM-R (SA) tool. Most respondents were 18-29 years (32%) and 30-49 years (53%) old. More than half (54%) of the respondents have completed grade 12 schooling. Adequate English health-related word recognition and pronunciation levels were at 19.5%, while native health-related word recognition and pronunciation levels were far better, ranging between 55.6% and 97.0%. Respondents showed better word recognition and pronunciation of the health-related words in their native language than in English. Providing health information in the patient's native language and on their level of understanding may therefore improve patient health outcomes.Contribution:The study is the first of its kind to determine word recognition and pronunciation of health-related words in English and a native language of South African PHC patients. Knowing this may assist healthcare professionals to give health education and instructions on the patient's level of understanding.

Fingerprints of Conspiracy Theories: Identifying Signature Information Sources of a Misleading Narrative and Their Roles in Shaping Message Content and Dissemination

This study investigates the role of information sources in the propagation and reception of misleading narratives on social media, focusing on the case of the Chemtrail conspiracy theory—a false claim that the trails in the sky behind airplanes are chemicals deliberately spread for sinister reasons. We collected data from Facebook Pages and Groups discussing the conspiracy theory. We specifically focused on identifying and analyzing “signature” information sources, which are repeatedly used by online communities engaged in the discussion of a misleading narrative but are not widely used by other communities. The findings indicate that messages referencing signature sources contain more death-, illness-, risk-, and health-related words, convey more negativity, and elicit more negative reactions from users, compared with those without signature sources. The insights from this study could contribute to the development of effective strategies to monitor and counter the spread of misleading narratives in digital spaces.

When Negative Turns out to Be Positive

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on various aspects of society, including language and cognitive processes. This research investigates how the pandemic has influenced associations related to health-related words among 1,454 Estonian native speakers. Data collected between January and March 2023 were compared with a pre-pandemic dataset, the Dictionary of Estonian Word Associations (DEWA), compiled from 2016 to 2018. The study focuses on fifteen health-related cue words. The results revealed that five terms experienced significant changes in their association sequences concerning the COVID-19 crisis. Notably, among these 15 words, three stand out as the most significant cases where a change occurred in their primary responses: these typically exhibit the most robust and enduring associative links, making them less susceptible to change. This unveils shifts in the mental lexicon's representations and the evolving perceptions of specific words and concepts amidst the pandemic backdrop. These findings illustrate how unforeseen external disruptions, such as the COVID-19 crisis, can reconfigure the salience of certain concepts within language and cognition. This research contributes to our comprehension of the linguistic repercussions and potential language adaptations triggered by a health crisis. It also enriches the relatively understudied field of word association research, particularly in languages beyond the dominion of English.

사회 또는 건강에의 위협? 코비드19의 프레이밍이 사람들의 돈과 시간의 기부의사에 미치는 영향에 관한 연구

As the coronavirus outbreak spreads, the pandemic has affected every region of the world, and its impacts are multi-fold; economic, political, and social. This research investigates how Covid-19 influences individuals’ prosocial intentions and behaviors through a random experiment and analysis of field data from a crowdfunding platform. When Covid-19 is described as a disease impacting society (vs. individual’s health), people perceive its threat more severely. We find that participants’ age moderates this relationship between Covid-19 descriptions and perceived severity. While perceived severity linearly increases with age in the health perspective condition, it does not vary by age in the social perspective condition. More importantly, this increased perception of Covid-19 severity subsequently leads to a higher willingness to help others with money (i.e., donation) but not with time (i.e., volunteering). We use a difference-indifference approach using large data from a loan-based crowdfunding platform, Kiva, and find that projects with society-related words yield higher funding success rates than those with health-related words after Covid-19. Our results suggest that highlighting the social aspect of Covid-19 rather than health-related issues would be a more effective communication strategy for encouraging prosocial behaviors.

Weibo users and Academia's foci on tourism safety: Implications from institutional differences and digital divide

Tourism safety is essential for tourists and tourism practitioners. This study conducted a bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer and CiteSpace for 2018 articles indexed on the Web of Science (WoS). It also analysed 7293 Weibo posts between 1977 and 2022 using Python, MYSQL, AI sentiment, and Tableau. The first tourism safety publication on WoS appeared in 1977, while the first Weibo microblog dated was dated back to 2011. Compared to the information posted on Weibo, the annual publications about tourism safety on WoS recorded a stable increment. On Web of Science (WoS), the academic staff and universities produced the largest number of tourism safety posts. On the flip side, the most productive organisations on Weibo are government agencies in popular tourism destinations. “Accident”, “medical tourism”, “environment”, “mediating role”, and “hospitality” were important burst nodes in tourism safety on WoS. “Quality”, “accident”, and health-related words were the foci on both Weibo and WoS. On Web of Science, the top 10 most popular keywords of tourism safety-related articles could be classified into two groups: health (“Covid-19”, “restoration”, “pandemics”, “Sars-Cov-2”, “Sars”, “mental health”) and IT terminologies (“big data”, “artificial intelligence”). It has been concluded that “artificial intelligence (AI)” is more likely to be included in the keywords on tourism researched by academia. In contrast, the public may not know about or use AI in the tourism industry. Besides, the top 10 most popular keywords on Weibo related to tourism risks and hazards were drowning and traffic risks and hazards, such as drowning and traffic risks. The digital divide may explain such a difference: the academic circle benefits more from the digital age than laypersons. It may also be the result of institutional differences and information asymmetry.

Analysis of Recipes Shared as 'Healthy' in a Popular Brazilian Website: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Cooking is crucial to the achievement of healthy eating habits, and the internet, as host of culinary recipes websites, is a medium for the dissemination of cooking-related content. Research has revealed that most recipes available on internet sites do not have healthy characteristics when compared to recommendations for healthy eating, even the ones promoted as 'healthy'. This study investigated culinary recipes available on the 'healthy eating' section of a popular Brazilian recipe-sharing website. Recipes (n = 814) were analyzed with a validated framework based on national dietary guidelines. Ingredients (n = 5887) were classified according to the extension and purpose of their industrial processing. The recipes' titles were content analyzed to identify the health-related words and phrases used. Recipes contained ultra-processed foods and not enough unprocessed or minimally processed foods, such as legumes (4.7%, n = 380), nuts and seeds (18.4%, n = 150), and fruits (n = 32.7%, n = 263). The recipes' titles mentioned 564 health-related terms, appealing to physical characteristics, including weight loss, and fads, such as gluten-free, dukan, low-carb, detox, fitness, ripped body, and belly burner. Therefore, the 'healthy' recipes available on the Brazilian recipe-sharing website presented many aspects not in accordance with national dietary guidelines.

The Interaction of Leader Gender and Country Collectivism on COVID-19 Deaths

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented challenges for employees and leaders. The pandemic has resulted in millions of deaths world-wide and changed the way people live and work. Until this public health crisis is controlled, employers and human resource managers will not be able to return to anything resembling a normal pre-pandemic work situation. Based on a sample of 56 countries, the present study examines two factors – leader (i.e., head of state) gender and national collectivism – to explain how some leaders have been able to manage the pandemic with less death than others during the COVID-19 pandemic. Countries with female presidents respond differently to the pandemic than those led by male presidents, resulting in fewer deaths. The results shed light on the person-environment fit between president gender and country collectivistic culture by demonstrating that male presidents leading more individualistic countries suffer from the highest levels of COVID-19 death. Supplemental qualitative analyses on transcripts of speeches delivered by world leaders show that presidents of more collectivistic countries use more health-related words than presidents of more individualistic countries when addressing the public, which suggests that health is more front-of-mind for leaders in more collectivistic nations. Additional analyses of media attention related to presidents’ handling of COVID-19 also show that media sentiment was more favorable for women leaders compared to men leaders. Also, consistent with our prediction, men leading more individualistic countries had the least positive media attention.

Mental Health Issues in Pregnancy and Childbirth: A Review of the Nepalese Nursing Curricula

Background: Mental health is a difficult public health topic to talk about making it hard for frontline health workers especially countries like in Nepal. General Nurses are providing maternal and mental health care due to lack of midwives and specialist mental health nurses. 
 Aim: This is the first study of this kind to review curricula on mental health components of pre-registration nursing training in Nepal.
 Methods: We conducted a rapid review of the nursing curricula on mental health and maternity care issues in Nepal. We reviewed 10 Nursing curricula of different levels of nursing. Content analysis tool was used to extract mental health related words or concepts to analyze the nursing curriculum.
 Findings: There is basic material included on both mental health and maternity care but nothing or little on the combination of the two topics. There appears to be a need for more communication skill, teaching and counseling at all levels of nursing. The nursing training need to focus on competency based and evidence based practice as successful strategies for perinatal mental health care. There is a great need for a curriculum to facilitate relevant training in Nepal.

Appeal to the head and heart: The persuasive effects of medical crowdfunding charitable appeals on willingness to donate

Medical crowdfunding helps low-income patients raise money for medical treatment and has grown tremendously in recent years. The most appropriate messaging strategy for writing charitable appeals to attract donations remains unclear. This study fills this gap by drawing on Aristotle's three modes of persuasion to explore factors affecting willingness to donate to medical crowdfunding projects from three aspects: logos, pathos, and ethos. This study adopted a multi-method approach by conducting two laboratory experiments (N = 125 and N = 123) and a field study (N = 1645). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) in Study 1 showed that high information quality (F = 9.774, p = 0.002) and gain frame (F = 8.620, p = 0.004) have positive effects on the trustworthiness of the project initiator (ethos), which in turn promoting potential donors’ willingness to donate (β = 0.339, p = 0.001). Study 2 confirmed the findings about information quality in Study 1, and further show that there was no significant difference between gain-first and gain-last frame on trustworthiness and willingness to donate (p > 0.05). Then, information quality is further detailed into three sub-dimensions in Study 3: text length, number of images, and number of health-related words. The results of ordinary least squares (OLS) regression with robust standard error indicate that the text length (β = 0.350, p < 0.001) and number of images (β = 0.048, p < 0.001) positively influence donation behavior, but the opposite conclusion yields health-related words (β = -0.027, p < 0.01). This study provides theoretical insights into the role of medical crowdfunding charitable appeals by verifying the persuasion effects of rational, emotional, and credibility appeals. This study also contributes to persuasion theory by highlighting the role of emotional appeals and identifying the mediating impact of credibility appeals in the context of medical crowdfunding. This study also has important practical implications by guiding funders to write persuasive charity appeals that will attract the attention of potential donors.

Googling Gout: Exploring Perceptions About Gout Through a Linguistic Analysis of Online Search Activities.

To understand what terms people seeking information about gout use most frequently in online searches and to explore the psychological and emotional tone of these searches. A large de-identified data set of search histories from major search engines was analyzed. Participants who searched for gout (n = 1,117), arthritis (arthritis search control group, age and sex-matched, n = 2,036), and a random set of age and sex-matched participants (general control group, n = 2,150) were included. Searches were analyzed using Meaning Extraction Helper and Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. The most frequent unique searches in the gout search group included gout-related and food-related terms. Those who searched for gout were most likely to search for words related to eating or avoidance. In contrast, those who searched for arthritis were more likely to search for disease- or health-related words. Compared with the general control group, higher information seeking was observed for the gout and arthritis search groups. Compared with the general control group, both the gout and arthritis search groups searched for more food-related words and fewer leisure and sex-related words. The searches of both the gout and arthritis search groups were lower in positivity and higher in the frequency of sadness-related words. The perception of gout as a condition managed by dietary strategies aligns with online information seeking about the disease and its management. In contrast, people searching for information about arthritis focus more on medical strategies. Linguistic analyses reflect greater disability in social and leisure activities and lower positive emotion for those searching for gout or arthritis.

Interpretation bias in the face of pain: a discriminatory fear conditioning approach.

Background and aims Interpreting pain- and illness-related stimuli as health-threatening is common among chronic pain patients but also occurs in the general population. As interpretation bias (IB) may affect pain perception and might even play part in the development and maintenance of chronic pain, it is important to improve our understanding of this concept. Several studies suggest an association between IB and pain-related anxiety. However, those studies often rely on verbal and pictorial IB tasks that do not entail a threat of actual pain, therefore lacking personal relevance for healthy participants. The current study investigated whether healthy individuals show an IB towards ambiguous health-related stimuli in a context of actual pain threat, and explored whether this bias is associated to pain anxiety constructs. Methods Thirty-six healthy participants were conditioned to expect painful electrocutaneous shocks (unconditioned stimulus - US) after health-threat words (CS+) but not after neutral (non-health-threat) words (CS-) in order to establish fear of pain. Subsequently, they completed a verbal interpretation task that contained new CS+ and CS- stimuli as well as ambiguous non-reinforced health-threat and non-health-threat words. IB was assessed through shock expectancy ratings and startle responses to ambiguous and evident health threatening or neutral word stimuli. Pain-related anxiety was measured with validated questionnaires. Results The results show a general IB towards ambiguous health-related words on pain expectancies but not on startle response. An exploratory analysis suggests that this effect exists irrespective of pain-related anxiety levels which however may be due to a lack of power. Conclusion We present a novel experimental paradigm employing actual health threat that captures IB towards health-related stimuli in healthy individuals. Taken together, results provide evidence for the further consideration of IB as a latent vulnerability factor in the onset and maintenance of pain chronicity. In contrast to previous studies employing a safe, pain-free context, we found that healthy participants show an IB towards ambiguous health-related stimuli, when confronted with pain threat. Implications Like chronic pain patients, healthy individuals display an IB towards health-threat stimuli when these stimuli become personally relevant by carrying information about pending health threat. Therefore, the presented paradigm could be valuable for pain-related cognitive bias research in healthy participants as it may have a higher ecological validity than previous study designs. Future studies will have to elucidate the influence of anxiety constructs on IB in larger samples.

Health Literacy Status and Understanding of the Prescription Instructions in Diabetic Patients.

This study aimed to assess the health literacy (HL) of patients having diabetes mellitus, their understanding of prescription instructions (PI), and the correlation between HL and understanding of PI. A cross-sectional survey was conducted in 263 adult diabetic patients who were assessed for their understanding of route of intake of the prescribed medication(s), frequency of intake, number of medication(s) to be consumed each time, indication for the medication(s), and the relation of drug intake with food. The HL of the patients was assessed by using Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine, a screening test comprising of 66 health-related words. The number of correctly pronounced words was used to assign a grade-equivalent reading level. There was a significant difference in the understanding of PI in patients with low and high HL levels. A significant difference was observed between the mean total score for interpreting PI in patients with 7 or fewer years of education compared with the other groups with a higher educational status (P < 0.001). To conclude, diabetic patients with low HL level will have difficulty in understanding PI. Hence, an alternative comprehensive strategy needs to be adopted in clinical practice in these patients to provide them the instructions to take medications properly.

CDC word ban? The fight over seven health-related words in the president’s next budget

CDC word ban? The fight over seven health-related words in the president’s next budget

Measuring affective attitudes towards health among adolescents

IntroductionAffective attitudes play a significant role in health behaviors. However, comparing to cognitive attitudes, affective attitudes are much less investigated.ObjectivesTo study affective attitudes towards health among adolescents, we measured associations between words related to health and positive/negative emotions.AimsWe used the modified Etkind Color Test (Etkind, 1980) as a new measure of affective attitudes.MethodsSubjects (n = 79, Mage = 14.34 ± 1.21, 35 males) ranked 8 colors from Lüscher's color test (1971) from best to least associated with each of 13 words related to health (e.g. sport, risky behaviors) and 6 words related to positive and negative emotions. To calculate an association between an emotion and a health-related word we used a scoring algorithm, similar to Palmer's and colleagues MCA score (Palmer et al., 2013).ResultsMeans of associations between words and positive emotions were assessed: my body (0.74 ± 2.02), environment (1.17 ± 1.82), eating (1.23 ± 1.98), health (1.60 ± 1.78), risky behaviors (−1.14 ± 2.14), family (2.13 ± 2.00), sport (2.02 ± 1.86), sleep (0.74 ± 1.85), school stress (−0.95 ± 1.89), hygiene (0.91 ± 1.85), medicine (0.61 ± 1.95), psychological well-being (1.11 ± 2.24), illness (−0.43 ± 1.39). Positive emotions had inverse relation with risk behaviors, illness and school stress and direct relation with the rest 10 factors.All correlations between negative and positive attitudes towards health related words were significant and negative (−.223 &lt; r &lt; 559), except two (medicine and illness).ConclusionsThe modified Etkind Color Test describes semantic space of affective attitudes towards health. It showed that adolescents mostly did not have ambivalent attitudes towards health related factors.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

An Empirical Study on Health-Related Words, Well-Being and Healing, used in Korean Newspaper Articles

This paper aims to investigate how corpus-analysis of health-related words, well-being and healing, and their collocations may be used to help understand social situations of a particular society at a particular time. For the purpose of the study, a small corpus of Korean newspaper articles was compiled and analyzed to see how frequently well-being and healing appeared in the headlines of newspaper articles as well as what words they co-occur with. This study also examined how their frequency and collocations had changed annually. The results of the study show that well-being was most frequently shown in 2000s whereas healing appeared more frequently in 2010s. Moreover, the collocations of well-being were closely associated with concrete materials while those of healing were more related to abstract things, even though both were health-related words. In this paper, it is claimed that sociolinguistic analysis of words used in newspaper articles can function as a barometer to estimate social situations of a particular society at a given time.

EL PARADIGMA STROOP EMOCIONAL EN EL ESTUDIO DEL PROCESAMIENTO COGNITIVO DE LA CONTRAPUBLICIDAD DEL TABACO

Abstract:THE EMOTIONAL STROOP PARADIGM IN THE STUDY OF TOBACCO COUNTERPUBLICITY COGNITIVE PROCESSINGThe aim of this work is to analyze the attentional and mnesic processing of words related to smoking and health using the emotional stroop paradigm and a bigram completing task. A modified stroop task consisting of three types of words: neutral, smoking related words and health related words extracted from health warnings messages presented in smoking publicity, was given to a sample integrated by smokers, non-smokers and former-smokers. The individuals performed then an implicit memory task. The results obtained indicated that the health related words are not preferentially attended by the smokers. However, they complete more bigrams with tobacco words than the other groups. The relevance of this memory bias in the context of smoking counterpublicity and of stop-smoking therapy is discussed.Keywords: emotional stroop paradigm, implicit memory, health warnings, smokers.Resumen:Este trabajo tiene como objetivo analizar el procesamiento atencional y mnésico de palabras relacionadas con el tabaco y con la salud utilizando el paradigma stroop emocional y una tarea de completar bigramas. A una muestra formada por fumadores, no fumadores y exfumadores se administró una tarea stroop modificada compuesta por tres tipos de palabras: neutras, palabras relacionadas con el consumo de tabaco y palabras relacionadas con la salud, extraídas de los mensajes de advertencia sanitaria que aparecen en la publicidad del tabaco. Posteriormente se aplicó una prueba de memoria implícita. Los resultados mostraron que las palabras relacionadas con los riesgos del tabaco para la salud no son atendidas de forma preferente por los fumadores y sin embargo completan más bigramas con palabras tabaco que el resto de los grupos. Se discute la relevancia de este estudio en el ámbito de la contrapublicidad y en las terapias de deshabituación del tabaco.Palabras clave: paradigma stroop emocional, memoria implícita, advertencias sanitarias, fumadores.

Health behaviours and their facilitation under depletion conditions: The case of snacking

Introduction: Previous research suggests that depletion (the state ensuing from self-control exertion) engenders lapses in health behaviours. The present study tested for that effect in relation to the health behaviour of limiting snacking, and investigated whether health goal-priming might facilitate such health behaviours even under depletion conditions. Method: A laboratory study was conducted involving an analytic sample of 85 undergraduates (mean age = 20.08, SD = 3.96; female: n = 63). Depletion was manipulated by having participants watch a humorous video while suppressing their responses (depletion condition) or remaining natural (non-depletion condition). The activation of participants' health goals was then manipulated by subtly exposing (goal-priming condition) or not exposing (non-priming condition) participants to health-related words in a Scrambled Sentence Task. Finally, snacking was measured using a bogus taste-test. Results and discussion: Controlling for initial hunger, snacking was higher among depleted compared to non-depleted participants. Snacking was lower among primed compared to non-primed participants. The interaction between depletion and goal-priming was not significant. These findings suggest that depletion should be recognised as a risk factor for lapses in health behaviours, and that health goal-priming may be a useful technique for facilitating such behaviours even when individuals are depleted.

Instruments of health literacy used in nursing studies with hypertensive elderly

This study aimed to analyze nursing research regarding the instruments used to evaluate health literacy in elderly hypertensive patients. This is an integrative literature review done in the databases LILACS, PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, and Cochrane, in June 2013. The articles, electronically available, were selected for full-text review by nurses, who assessed health literacy of elderly with hypertension. Eight studies were selected for analysis and four different instruments were used in the research. The instruments were developed according to a methodology and they were all designed to evaluate the abilities of elderly regarding reading, numeracy, pronunciation and recognition of some health-related words. The nursing research analyzed in this study revealed the gaps in care related to measures aimed to increase patient's involvement in decision-making. Also, the instruments used for measuring health literacy showed limitations, and there is no gold standard test.

Effects of Dispositional Coping Strategy and Level of Health Anxiety on Attentional Bias

We examined the influence of dispositional coping strategy and level of health anxiety (HA) on attentional bias in regard to health-related stimuli. In a dot-probe task participants were exposed to health and nonhealth-related words for 1,250 ms. The high HA group showed significantly greater attentional bias in regard to health stimuli compared to the low HA group. In addition, in the low HA group there was no difference in attentional bias toward health-related words according to whether they were blunters (cognitively avoidant) or monitors (vigilant for information), but in the group with high HA blunters showed stronger attentional bias for health stimuli compared to monitors. Our results in this study confirmed that not only did individuals with HA show a bias toward selective attention to health-related information, but also that this bias was affected by their dispositional coping strategy.

Can priming a healthy eating goal cause depleted consumers to prefer healthier snacks?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether priming words related to a healthy eating goal can facilitate self-control among depleted people. Design/methodology/approach – A between-subject experimental design was employed, and participants were randomly assigned to conditions. Findings – Consistent with prior research, this research finds that depletion hurts self-control, and that priming words related to a healthy eating goal facilitates it. What is novel is that if people engage in an initial task that requires self-control (that is, if people are depleted), priming health-related words has no positive influence on self-control. Practical implications – Priming health-related words has no impact on preference when consumers are depleted; implying that marketers of healthy food products should place their product at the beginning of a consumer shopping experience, when resources are most available. In other words, the decision to associate a brand with health-related claims must be strategically coordinated with retail location decisions to maximize its effect on consumer choice. From a public policy perspective, there are some implications for grocery store layouts. For example, it may be argued that removing temptations near the entrance of a grocery store might allow consumers to conserve their effort, which may result in healthier choices. Originality/value – This research finds that priming consumers with health-related words can encourage healthy eating choices, but only when consumers have not already engaged in self-control. This is a new insight to theory (specifically, the depletion model and the theory of nonconscious goal priming), and provides an important contribution to a significant and timely issue (that is, how to prevent and reduce obesity). This paper presents relevant implications and concludes with a number of worthwhile future research ideas.