Focus: Health Communication

Abstract: This content analysis evaluated tweets about the opioid epidemic published in 2018 by U.S. federal and state health organizations to find out what components of both textual and visual of tweets can achieve the most effective communication for opioid epidemic including text characteristics, perceived discrete emotion and visual components of images. This study found […]

Abstract: Depression is one of the most severe health threats to the college student population. Depression communication plays an essential role in reducing stigma and discrimination against sufferers. However, the effectiveness of such communication remains understudied, especially when it comes to the psychological process connecting depression message and communication outcomes. To tackle this challenge, this […]

Abstract: Individuals increasingly rely on the Internet, and social media in particular, for health-related information. A recent survey reports that 80% of Internet users search for health information online. In the present study, we employ Twitter data to understand content characteristics and the patterns of content flow of the conversations about the HPV vaccine debate. […]