Focus: Public Health

Abstract: Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects all communities. However, more immigrant women suffer from IPV than the national average, including Korean immigrant women. The importance of family harmony, the priority of family interests over individual interests, and the cultural expectation for women to endure hardship to preserve the family contribute to the decision of Korean […]

Abstract: Scholars have adopted Street’s (2003) ecological model of communication in medical encounters to investigate the factors promoting patient participation in health care.  However, factors demonstrated in the ecological model were bounded in the context of medical care primarily focusing on health care providers and patients.  Social factors, such as patients’ relationships and supportive communication […]

Abstract: This study examined if and how Facebook user-generated comments about the flu vaccine influenced psychological reactance in conjunction with pre-existing flu vaccine attitude. Psychological reactance was further tested as a mediating factor influencing behavioral intention to receive the vaccine. An experimental study was conducted with 264 college students. The results showed that pre-existing attitude […]

Abstract: The present article investigates the antecedent and consequence of hope arousal over the course of processing a fear appeal message by considering constructs and propositions of the extended parallel process model (Witte, 1992). In order to empirically test the mechanism through which hope is produced, this study employed an online experimental study concerning genital […]

Abstract: Through an online, nationally representative survey (N = 1,164), this study examines how individuals perceive and cope with infectious disease outbreaks. Findings inform risk and crisis communications strategies for health organizations. This study explored how individuals’ threat appraisals (perceived controllability, perceived predictability, and perceived responsibility) and their cognitive (i.e., information seeking) and conative coping […]

Abstract: How individuals experience unintended effects of risk messages is an understudied area. Focusing on three types of unintended effects (i.e., message fatigue, risk tolerance, and psychological reactance) associated with health risk communication, we conducted an online survey among Italian adults (N = 507) to investigate how perceived message fatigue and risk tolerance might induce […]

Abstract: This study investigated if and how exposure to Facebook comments about vaccines influences one’s attitude toward the vaccines. In this investigation, comments were examined in light of their effect on attitude toward vaccines through perceived distribution of public opinion on vaccines, and perceived vaccine efficacy was tested as a factor moderating relative effects of […]

Glen Nowak is an invited panelist at the June 25-July 2 (virtual) annual meeting of the Society for Birth Defects Research and Prevention. The panel session on June 29 is focused on “Investigation of a Potential Outbreak of Birth Defects,” and Glen’s presentation will be on “Communicating with the Public During a Public Health Emergency.”

Brooke Liu, Lucinda Austin, Yen-I Lee, Yan Jin, and Seoyeon Kim. (Forthcoming). “Telling the Tale: The Role of Narratives in Helping People Respond to Crises.” Journal of Applied Communication Research. Abstract: During public health crises like infectious disease outbreaks, news media and governments are responsible for informing the public about how to protect themselves. A […]

Abstract: Recent studies have devoted attention to the effects of both expression and reception in communication process. However, there remain both theoretical and methodological complexities concerning whether and under what condition message expression and reception play significant but different roles in explaining various psychosocial health outcomes. Relying on theoretical insights from the social support literature […]