How Health Media Environment and Communication Orientations Affect Health Outcomes: An Application of O1-S-O2-R Model

Jeong Yeob Han & Kim, H. “How Health Media Environment and Communication Orientations Affect Health Outcomes: An Application of O₁-S-O₂-R Model,” Forthcoming at Health Communication Research. 

Abstract: Extant studies tend to simply connect mass media use and health outcomes, closing off a number of avenues to theorizing interpersonal communication as a potential intervening process of health media effects. To directly address this issue, we explicate the mechanism of how health media attention influences health outcomes through its effects on two interpersonal communication orientations, conventional patient-centered communication and online interactive health messaging. We explore these relationships using data collected from the Health Information National Trends Survey conducted with a nationally representative sample of U.S. residents. Overall, these results shed some light on (a) the relationship between health media attention and online health messaging, and (b) how two interpersonal communication orientations are linked to health-related outcomes in a new health communication ecology.