Focus: Health and Risk Communication

The ability to effectively and efficiently communicate about health and risk-related issues is becoming increasingly important. Hospitals, government agencies, health departments, news media organizations and public relations and other communication practitioners need to know how best to reach diverse audiences with timely and relevant messages, and the new Grady Center for Health and Risk Communication (CHRC) is an important interdisciplinary center of expertise.

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Infectious Disease Risk (IDR) Perception and Prospective Tourists’ Travel Intention to a Mega-sport Event Host Country: The Mediating Role of Risk Information Seeking Yan Jin and DongWon Choi

Abstract: While risk perception has been the subject of many sport tourism studies, much remains to be linked with risk information seeking, travel-related response, and behavior in the sport tourism contexts. Previous studies lacked evidence-based literature to examine the effect of risk perception on travel decisions in the case of risks associated with infectious diseases […]

Uncovering layers in health risk communication: The roles of risk tolerance, message fatigue, and trust Yan Jin and Youngji Seo

Abstract: One of the understudied topics in risk communication is why individuals do not follow or are resistant to recommended behaviors that optimize personal health outcomes. To understand the dimensionality of these responses, this study investigates barriers for persuasion (i.e., risk tolerance and message fatigue) and trust in government. An online survey using a representative […]

Tracing the Caring Relationships Found Within Three Virus Outbreaks: A Public Health Communications Perspective Yan Jin

Abstract: The world is subject to many an affliction and pandemic, as seen most recently with COVID-19. This study, in an attempt to better understand the trends and workings of the past, conducted deep-dive narrative and trend analyses of three prominent virus afflictions: the 1918 Flu, Polio, and HIV/AIDs. Through the lens of public health […]

Do Young Adults Attend to Health Warnings in the First IQOS Advertisement in the U.S.? An Eye-Tracking Approach Glen Nowak and Joe Phua

Abstract: Introduction: In October 2019, a heated tobacco product (HTP) IQOS debuted in the United States. This study examined young adults’ attention and cognitions in response to an IQOS ad that carried two mandated textual health warnings (Surgeon General’s warning and nicotine warning), and how their vaping and smoking status may interact with attention patterns […]

Organizational Threat Appraisal by Publics: The Effects of Perceived Temporal Distance on Health Crisis Outcomes

Sungsu Kim (Grady PhD Alum) and Yan Jin (Forthcoming). “Organizational Threat Appraisal by Publics: The Effects of Perceived Temporal Distance on Health Crisis Outcomes.” International Journal of Communication. Abstract: The current study advances our understanding of how organizational threat affects the way publics respond to a health crisis. To this end, we investigated the influence […]

The Infectious Disease Threat (IDT) Appraisal Model: How Perceptions of IDT Predictability and Controllability Predict Individuals’ Responses to Risks Yan Jin

Yan Jin, Irina A. Iles, Lucinda Austin, Brooke Liu, and Gregory R. Hancock (Forthcoming). “The Infectious Disease Threat (IDT) Appraisal Model: How Perceptions of IDT Predictability and Controllability Predict Individuals’ Responses to Risks.” International Journal of Strategic Communication. Abstract: Grounded in the multidisciplinary field of strategic risk and health communication, this study proposed and tested […]

Adherence to Timely Vaccinations in the United States Glen Nowak

Hargreaves AL, Glen J. Nowak, Paula Frew, AR Hinman, WA Orenstein et al., “Adherence to Timely Vaccinations in the United States,” Pediatrics, 145(3, March 2020):e20190783. Abstract: We used 2014 National Immunization Survey provider-verified vaccination data to classify vaccination patterns as “recommended” (ie, in line with ACIP dose- and age-specific recommendations), “alternate” (ie, in line with […]

An Assessment of Parents’ Childhood Immunization Beliefs, Intentions, and Behaviors Using a Smartphone Panel Glen Nowak

Boyle J., Berman L, Glen J. Nowak, Iachan R, Middleton D and Deng Y. “An Assessment of Parents’ Childhood Immunization Beliefs, Intentions, and Behaviors Using a Smartphone Panel,” Vaccine, 2020;38(10):2416-2423. Abstract: It is important to quickly identify parent beliefs, intentions, and behaviors toward childhood vaccination, especially parents of children 19 to 35 months. A sample […]

True or False: How Parents Decide to Seek, Vet, or Share Infectious Disease Outbreak Information Yan Jin and Xuerong Lu

Accepted for presentation at the International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference (ICRCC), March 9-11, 2020, Orlando, FL. Abstract: Numerous studies have explored how publics seek and share crisis information, but none has examined whether publics verify the accuracy of crisis and risk information before sharing the information or seeking additional information. These considerations are especially […]

Integrating Strategy and Dosage: A New Conceptual Formula for Assessing Intended and Unintended Effects of Health Risk Communication Xuerong Lu and Yan Jin

Accepted for presentation at the International Crisis and Risk Communication Conference (ICRCC), March 9-11, 2020, Orlando, FL. Abstract: How to detect side effects of repeated exposure of the same or similar campaign messages over time on at-risk publics has emerged as a critical research question currently understudied. By formulating a new way of assessing health […]