Janel S Schuh, Emma C Prus, Cindy Abello, Katy Evans, Kathleen Walker, Mark Miller, Brian C Castrucci
{"title":"Public Health Communication and Trust: Opportunities for Understanding.","authors":"Janel S Schuh, Emma C Prus, Cindy Abello, Katy Evans, Kathleen Walker, Mark Miller, Brian C Castrucci","doi":"10.1080/10810730.2025.2466098","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10810730.2025.2466098","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of effective communication to build and strengthen public trust in the field of public health. To address this need, we conducted virtual qualitative message testing via focus groups and individual in-depth interviews with a demographically and psychographically diverse mix of 100 English-speaking U.S. adults in March and April 2024. Following best practices in health literacy and plain language, we developed and tested 20 primary messages that focused on core values of the public health field and public health activities. Throughout message testing, participants demonstrated an unexpectedly limited or inaccurate understanding of public health, which shaped their reactions to messages. Although participants expressed positive reactions to some aspects of messages that humanize public health professionals, reflect audiences' lived experiences, provide clear and specific examples of public health activities, and highlight public health efforts within a local context, their limited or inaccurate understanding of public health made it difficult to assess message efficacy and resonance. After participants reviewed the messages, researchers observed that participants exhibited negligible shifts in their trust in the public health field and perceptions of its value and still had trouble articulating core public health concepts. Findings reveal substantial information gaps related to public health - that is, what public health is, what public health professionals do, and how it impacts lives and communities - and provide new insights about public health literacy and opportunities for developing effective messaging strategies about the public health field.</p>","PeriodicalId":16026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Communication","volume":"30 sup1","pages":"76-89"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143753020","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Helen M Lillie, Manusheela Pokharel, Jakob D Jensen
{"title":"A Missing Mechanism of Effect: How People Who Habitually Replot Stories React Differently (Or Not so Differently) to Melanoma Narratives.","authors":"Helen M Lillie, Manusheela Pokharel, Jakob D Jensen","doi":"10.1080/10810730.2024.2427395","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10810730.2024.2427395","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>When stories have undesirable endings, readers often engage in replotting, meaning they imagine alternative plotlines that could change the unwanted ending. Recent research has found that both the cognitive and emotional components of replotting serve as mechanisms of narrative persuasion. Building on this work, the current study assessed if people who habitually replot are more persuaded by a tragic story ending than those who do not, testing hypotheses with melanoma narratives. Cognitive and emotional (i.e., anger, anxiety, sadness, and hope) aspects of replotting were tested as mechanisms of this proposed interaction. Participants (<i>N</i> = 432) were randomized into a 2 (protagonist death vs. survival) x 6 (specific melanoma story) between-subjects online narrative message experiment. Participants who habitually replot had significantly higher melanoma prevention intentions after reading a death (compared to a survival) ending. This effect was not present for other participants. However, counter to hypotheses, the cognitive and emotional aspects of actual replotting did not explain the effect, meaning habitual replotters were not more likely to replot the death ending or experience replotting emotion than other participants were. Future research is needed to determine why habitual replotters are more persuaded by unwanted story endings than other audience members are.</p>","PeriodicalId":16026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"59-67"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11957928/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142644282","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lourdes S Martinez, Aachal Devi, Gerardo Maupomé, Melody K Schiaffino, Guadalupe X Ayala, Vanessa L Malcarne, Kristin S Hoeft, Tracy L Finlayson
{"title":"Using a Social Network Approach to Characterize Oral Health Behavior Social Support Among Mexican-Origin Young Adults.","authors":"Lourdes S Martinez, Aachal Devi, Gerardo Maupomé, Melody K Schiaffino, Guadalupe X Ayala, Vanessa L Malcarne, Kristin S Hoeft, Tracy L Finlayson","doi":"10.1080/10810730.2024.2433528","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10810730.2024.2433528","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Using a social network approach, we characterize who Mexican-origin young adults perceive as social support sources for oral health behaviors and provide additional validity evidence for Oral Health Behavior Social Support Scales (OHBSS). From April to September 2022, we gathered social network data from 62 Mexican-origin adults (21-40 years old) through Zoom interviews about their perceived received social support for three oral health behaviors (toothbrushing, flossing, and obtaining dental care) from three potential sources of support (family, health providers, and others/friends). Overall, we found similar results across all three oral health behaviors. We also found evidence for convergent and discriminant validity of OHBSS scales using social network measures. Implications of findings are discussed.</p>","PeriodicalId":16026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"13-28"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12069000/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142885809","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"For Myself or for Others? The Influence of Family Communication Patterns on Family Health History Communication and Online Health Information Seeking.","authors":"Yulei Feng","doi":"10.1080/10810730.2025.2450617","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10810730.2025.2450617","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>With innovations in health information technology, there are increasing opportunities to search for health information online, with the potential to reduce health care costs and improve health outcomes for the family. This study aims to investigate how family communication processes influence online health information seeking for oneself (self OHIS) and for another person (surrogate OHIS). An online survey was conducted among 325 adults in China. The results showed that <i>family conversation orientation</i> was positively related to family health history (FHH) communication intentions, whereas <i>family conformity orientation</i> was negatively related to FHH communication intentions. <i>Family conversation orientation</i> was positively related to self and surrogate OHIS through the partial and masking mediation effects of FHH communication intentions, respectively. <i>Family conformity orientation</i> was negatively related to self OHIS through the full mediating effect of FHH communication intentions, while FHH communication intentions played a masking mediating role between <i>conformity orientation</i> and surrogate OHIS. Implications for extending family communication patterns research to health communication and cultural forces on OHIS are discussed.</p>","PeriodicalId":16026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"72-81"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142971167","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fear in Media Headlines Increases Public Risk Perceptions but Decreases Preventive Behaviors: A Multi-Country Study During the COVID-19 Pandemic.","authors":"Sijia Qian, Kaiping Chen, Jingbo Meng, Cuihua Shen, Anfan Chen, Jingwen Zhang","doi":"10.1080/10810730.2024.2439468","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10810730.2024.2439468","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The perception of reality could matter more than reality itself when it comes to disease outbreaks. News media are important sources of information during global disease outbreaks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on theories of fear appeals and the social ecological model, we conducted multilevel modeling analyses to examine how media-level and community-level factors influenced the public's risk perceptions of COVID-19 and frequencies of preventive behaviors in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and India. We combined a large-scale multi-wave cross-country survey (<i>N</i> = 161,374) with a COVID-19 media coverage archive (<i>N</i> = 10,015,187) to test these relationships. We found that fear in media headlines was positively correlated with people's perceptions of risk but negatively correlated with frequencies of preventive behaviors, controlling for individual-, community-, and cultural-level factors. Similar patterns were consistently identified within each individual country. We also show that community factors interacted with the media environment to influence public risk perceptions and behaviors. Our findings highlight a strong mass media influence during the pandemic, and we discuss the implications of our findings for health communication during crisis times.</p>","PeriodicalId":16026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"29-39"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142846885","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jorn Hermans, Gabry Kuijten, Liese Vandeborne, Klara Rombauts, Guy Buyens, Manuel Bollue, Patrick Deroost, Isabelle Huys, Rosanne Janssens
{"title":"Information Service \"My Cancer Navigator\" to Support Shared Decision-Making: An Online Survey Among Patients with Cancer and Their Caregivers.","authors":"Jorn Hermans, Gabry Kuijten, Liese Vandeborne, Klara Rombauts, Guy Buyens, Manuel Bollue, Patrick Deroost, Isabelle Huys, Rosanne Janssens","doi":"10.1080/10810730.2025.2450618","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10810730.2025.2450618","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The personalized information service My Cancer Navigator (MCN) answers therapy-related questions of patients with cancer and their caregivers, to address information needs and contribute to shared decision-making (SDM). An explorative and descriptive cross-sectional study using online surveys was conducted to assess whether users perceived a change in factors contributing to SDM after using the service. Of 253 invited MCN users, 109 (43.1%) filled out the survey (64.2% patients and 35.8% caregivers). Most participants experienced a positive change in their emotional well-being (72.5%) and knowledge level (86.3%). The majority (68.5%) of patients reported being able to cope better with their disease while 76.4% of caregivers felt more able to support the patient throughout the disease process. Discussing treatment preferences and making decisions with health-care professionals (HCPs) became easier for 48.5% and 44.0% of patients, respectively. Of all participants, 52.0% reported a change in disease management. These findings suggest that most participants perceived MCN as impactful. The service facilitated the implementation of SDM from the patient perspective by improving communication with HCPs, increasing knowledge level, improving emotional well-being, and helping them cope better with the disease. Further research should explore how this type of service can be integrated in the care pathway.</p>","PeriodicalId":16026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"82-92"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143006248","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pornography Use and Coitus Interruptus: Is There a Link?","authors":"Paul J Wright, Debby Herbenick","doi":"10.1080/10810730.2025.2450248","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10810730.2025.2450248","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Coitus interruptus - colloquially referred to as withdrawal - is an attempt at contraception wherein the penis is removed from the vagina prior to ejaculation, with ejaculation occurring somewhere outside the vagina. Although withdrawal can reduce the risk of pregnancy, it is less efficacious than methods such as consistent condom use and hormonal birth control. Consequently, it is of public health importance to identify sociocultural influences that either increase or decrease the likelihood of withdrawal as a contraceptive technique. Multiple content analyses have identified external ejaculation as common in popular pornography, yet no study appears to have assessed whether more frequent pornography consumption increases the likelihood of withdrawal behavior. Using national probability data, the present study examined whether pornography use and withdrawal were correlated among U.S. women aged 15-49. Women who consumed pornography more frequently were more likely to report using withdrawal as a contraceptive method than women who consumed pornography less frequently, but this association was moderated by perceptions of pornography's utility and women's marital status. Results are discussed through the lens of the sexual script acquisition, activation, application model (<sub>3</sub>AM) of sexual media socialization.</p>","PeriodicalId":16026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"60-71"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12068994/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142971168","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ashley B Murray, Neha Trivedi, Roxanne E Jensen, Gordon Willis, Richard P Moser, Kelly D Blake
{"title":"Validation of a Cancer-Focused Information Seeking Experience (ISEE) Scale.","authors":"Ashley B Murray, Neha Trivedi, Roxanne E Jensen, Gordon Willis, Richard P Moser, Kelly D Blake","doi":"10.1080/10810730.2025.2449972","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10810730.2025.2449972","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Searching for health information is critical for maintaining one's health and reducing risk of disease, including cancer. However, some people are more likely to experience challenges in finding and comprehending health information; therefore, it is important to measure health information-seeking behavior. In order to add to prior research conducted with the scale, this study provides the first formal evaluation of the validity and reliability of the four-item, cancer-focused Information Seeking Experience (ISEE) scale in a cross-sectional, nationally representative health survey of U.S. adults.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Results indicated that the four ISEE scale items were within limits of normality (skew range = -.44-.11; kurtosis range = -1.07 - -.71), exhibited medium to strong pairwise correlations (<i>r</i>'s = .54-.72), and indicated a strong internal consistency (Cronbach's α = .85). The scale was unidimensional (CFI = .997, TLI = .992, SRMR = .012), and the scale demonstrated construct validity with known sociodemographic characteristics. As predicted, the ISEE scale had relatively weak relationships with the Patient Health Questionnaire for Depression and Anxiety, Patient-Centered Communication Scale, and the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Instrumental Support 4a, demonstrating discriminant validity.</p><p><strong>Conclusions: </strong>Tracking information-seeking experience in the population is critical, especially to inform efforts that ensure individuals have accessible, understandable, and reliable information about cancer. The ISEE scale was found to assess various aspects of cancer information-seeking in a reliable and valid manner and may be used in future surveys to track information support needs of those who seek health and cancer information.</p>","PeriodicalId":16026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"51-59"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12068989/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142965573","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Divergent Routes of Health Infotainment in Changing Public Health Attitudes: A GPT-2 Analysis of Users' Responses to Health Infotainment.","authors":"Cong Wang, Han Wang, Zheng Yang, Suya Ding","doi":"10.1080/10810730.2024.2448492","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10810730.2024.2448492","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Infotainment is an effective and widely used way of spreading health information. However, the specific mechanism of its effects remains unclear. This study analyzed 215,020 user comments under a popular health animation - the <i>Cells at Work</i> - on Bilibili.com, using the GPT-2 method. The analysis found that when faced with such an infotainment health communication text, audiences' subsequent expressions of health attitudes and related changes were limited, indicating that the effectiveness of infotainment as a means of health communication should not be overestimated. Audiences have different reactions to the health information and entertainment parts of such infotainment. The effect of health information in arousing changes in audiences' health attitudes is lower than that of the entertainment. This indicates that we need to reconsider the balance between the health information and entertainment parts involved.</p>","PeriodicalId":16026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"40-50"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142931941","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Traci Hong, Zilu Tang, Jiaxi Wu, Eleanor J Murray, Derry Wijaya, Christopher E Beaudoin
{"title":"Posted in Error: Did the CDC's Retraction of Aerosol Guidance Undercut Its Public Reputation?","authors":"Traci Hong, Zilu Tang, Jiaxi Wu, Eleanor J Murray, Derry Wijaya, Christopher E Beaudoin","doi":"10.1080/10810730.2024.2427943","DOIUrl":"10.1080/10810730.2024.2427943","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>While there is ample research on the influence of retracted scientific publications on author reputation, less is known about how a health organization's retraction of scientific guidance can impact public perceptions of the organization. This study centers on the aerosol guidance retraction of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 2020. X/Twitter social media data were collected via ForSight from September 15 to October 8, 2020, with a machine learning algorithm specifically developed and used to detect sentiment toward the CDC. Regression analyses of the non-bot sample (<i>N</i> = 265,326) tested for differences in CDC sentiment across four stages: 1) baseline; 2) CDC guidance change; 3) CDC retraction of the prior guidance change; and 4) CDC reversion to a tempered form of the initial guidance change. The results show that sentiment toward the CDC increased from Time 1 to Time 2, then decreased for Time 3 with the \"posted in error\" retraction, but then increased for Time 4 back to a level similar to Time 2. That public perceptions of the CDC could improve after these changes in scientific guidance may be attributed to its self-report of the retraction and reporting that the retraction was a result of unintentional error. This study connects theories of reputation management and trust repair with the growing empirical research on retractions of published scientific research to provide a theoretical explanation for how a major public health organization can mitigate damage to its reputation in the short term.</p>","PeriodicalId":16026,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Health Communication","volume":" ","pages":"1-12"},"PeriodicalIF":3.1,"publicationDate":"2025-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142837146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}