Glen Nowak was an invited panelist for a session on “Tools and Techniques for Building & Sustaining Trust in Health Information,” at National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media, Aug. 16-18 in Atlanta. The session provided health communication professionals with a first-hand look at the future of mitigating dis/misinformation in the public health space. The panel included presentations from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Convergence Accelerator Program, which is sponsoring the development and testing of innovative tools and ideas designed to strengthen health communication and build public trust.
Topic: health communication
Effective Communication Management in a Public Health Crisis: Lessons Learned about COVID-19 Pandemic through the Lens of Health Communication Executives
Taylor Voges (PhD candidate), Yan Jin, LaShonda Eaddy (PhD alum), Shelley Spector. (forthcoming). “Effective Communication Management in a Public Health Crisis: Lessons Learned about COVID-19 Pandemic through the Lens of Health Communication Executives.” Journal of Communication Management.
Abstract: This study aims to provide insights on the COVID-19 pandemic communication from the lessons learned by health communication executives—how they perceived the COVID-19 pandemic and recommend preparing for communication management of future public health crisis. A number of top health communication executives in the United States were interviewed, for their unique perspectives on the COVID-19 pandemic. The contingency theory of strategic conflict management is used for qualitative deductive analysis, rendering several segmentations of key factors that drove organizational communication management decision making during the pandemic: organization characteristics, relationship characteristics, general external climate, external publics, and the issue under question. Health communication executives heavily relied on their past health communication experiences, which led to nuanced understandings of the COVID-19 pandemic. Theoretically, the contingency theory is furthered via an implied theoretical linkage between the construct of general external climate and the construct of external publics. Practically, the health communication executives urged future practitioners to constantly assess risks, hire and use diverse and representative decision-makers; set a communication protocol; and keep the communication in perspective.
Processing depression: Effects of gender stereotypical information in DTC ads
Bridging the Fear and Hope: A Smartphone Eye-Tracking Examination of the Effects of Hope in Fear-based Health Messages
Abstract: This study used a smartphone eye-tracking approach to examine understudied areas in health communication – hope in fear appeal – when people are exposed to differential emotional shifts with fear and hope on social media. In an image presentation with 4 (fear only vs. fear-then-hope vs. fear and hope vs. hope-then-fear) between-subjects eye-tracking experiment, participants viewed Instagram posts with variation of emotional shifts, then answered a questionnaire containing measures including perceived self-efficacy and intent to engagement of diabetes preventive behavior. Results indicated that emotional shift from fear to hope influences message processing through raising participants’ perceptions of self-efficacy compared to fear-only image social media content. The research also showed that fear-based images increased people’s attention to efficacy information followed by fear and hope, fear-then-hope, and hope-then-fear condition. Implications for health communication theory and practice are further discussed.
Toward an integrated model of healthy food choice: Examining the moderated mediation effects via online search for nutrition information
Abstract: When numerous reasons behind the obesity problem, such as eating junk food, consuming too many calories, sedentary lifestyle, and other individual-centric causes may not be easily erased, several factors were found to lead people to better healthy eating habits and lifestyles. This study was designed to test a proposed model that consisted of various dynamic factors toward healthy food choice. Results showed that online search for nutrition information was significantly affected by obesity knowledge, but not by BMI. Then, online search for nutrition information would affect healthy food choice, while self-efficacy also promoted healthy food choice. Moreover, online search for nutrition information and self-efficiency jointly yielded a significant impact on healthy food choice. Both practical and theoretical implications were discussed.
The Persuasive Effects of Narrative PSAs on COVID-19 Vaccination Intention: The Mediating Role of Empathy and Psychological Reactance
Abstract: Successful COVID-19 vaccine promotion for the unvaccinated relies on increasing positive reactions but also reducing negative responses to persuasive messages. The current study examined the relative effects of narrative vs. non-narrative public service announcements (PSAs) promoting COVID-19 vaccination on both positive and negative reactions. We explored the role of empathy and psychological reactance as underlying mechanisms. Results of an experiment involving unvaccinated young adults indicate that the narrative (vs. non-narrative) PSAs led to greater empathy. While no direct effects of message type emerged on psychological reactance or vaccination intention, results of a serial multi-mediator model confirmed that empathy and psychological reactance mediated the effects of message type on vaccination intention, yielding theoretical and practical implications for research and practice in COVID-19 vaccination and health communication.
Factors that Impact COVID-19 Conspirational Beliefs and Health-Related Behaviors
Abstract: To further investigate the role of conspirational beliefs on health-related behaviors during a health pandemic such as COVID-19, we conducted an online survey among U.S. adults (N = 798) to examine: (1) the strengths of different groups of individual-level variables in predicting conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 and related health behaviors; and (2) the role of beliefs in conspiracy theories about COVID-19 in mediating the relationship between individual differences and COVID-19 health-related behaviors. Our findings provide implications to pandemic communication theory and practice.
Trust and Cultural Factors Shaping COVID-19 Vaccination Intentions across Six Countries
Abstract: Based on a COVID-19 pandemic communication survey (N = 3,124) in Australia, Finland, Italy, South Korea, Sweden, and the United States, our study examined how trust in government sources affects the vaccination intention and how this translates into cross-national variations in the outcome. Our findings revealed that the direct effect of trust in government sources on vaccination intention and the indirect effect via power distance and uncertainty avoidance varied across the six countries.
How Emotional Appeals in Health Promotion Messages and User-generated Comments Impact COVID-19 Vaccination Intention: The Mediating Role of Psychological Reactance
Abstract: To close existing research gap and combat vaccine hesitancy among young adults, we conduct this study to integrate psychological reactance theory to better understand the effectiveness of three emerging yet understudied emotional appeals (i.e., guilt, shame, and pride) in health risk context. The current research has two goals: (1) to examine how different emotional appeals (guilt vs. shame vs. pride) and user-generated comments toward COVID-19 vaccine messages independently or interactively affect psychological reactance and (2) to understand the mediating role of psychological reactance between emotional appeals and user-generated comments and desired behavioral outcomes. An experimental study with 3 (guilt vs. shame vs. pride) by 2 (positive-valenced comments vs. negative-valenced comments) between-subjects factorial design will be conducted with college students (aged 18-24) at a large public university in the United States. Our findings strengthen the theoretical foundation on how health risk messages with user-generated comments interactively can predict undesired health outcomes. Our study also helps health organizations design more effective messages targeting at young adults by lowering psychological reactance and enhancing persuasive power in motivating COVID-19 vaccination.
Intergroup Contact, COVID-19 News Consumption, and the Moderating Role of Digital Media Trust on Prejudice toward Asians in the U.S.: A Cross-Sectional Study
Abstract:
Background: The perceived threat of a contagious virus may lead people to be distrustful of immigrants and out-groups. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the salient politicized discourses of blaming Chinese people for spreading the virus have fueled over 2000 reports of anti-Asian racial incidents and hate crimes in the United States.
Objective: The study aims to investigate the relationships between news consumption, trust, intergroup contact, and prejudicial attitudes toward Asians and Asian Americans residing in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. We compare how traditional news, social media use, and biased news exposure cultivate racial attitudes, and the moderating role of media use and trust on prejudice against Asians is examined.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was completed in May 2020. A total of 430 US adults (mean age 36.75, SD 11.49 years; n=258, 60% male) participated in an online survey through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform. Respondents answered questions related to traditional news exposure, social media use, perceived trust, and their top three news channels for staying informed about the novel coronavirus. In addition, intergroup contact and racial attitudes toward Asians were assessed. We performed hierarchical regression analyses to test the associations. Moderation effects were estimated using simple slopes testing with a 95% bootstrap confidence interval approach.
Results: Participants who identified as conservatives (β=.08, P=.02), had a personal infection history (β=.10, P=.004), and interacted with Asian people frequently in their daily lives (β=.46, P<.001) reported more negative attitudes toward Asians after controlling for sociodemographic variables. Relying more on traditional news media (β=.08, P=.04) and higher levels of trust in social media (β=.13, P=.007) were positively associated with prejudice against Asians. In contrast, consuming news from left-leaning outlets (β=–.15, P=.001) and neutral outlets (β=–.13, P=.003) was linked to less prejudicial attitudes toward Asians. Among those who had high trust in social media, exposure had a negative relationship with prejudice. At high levels of trust in digital websites and apps, frequent use was related to less unfavorable attitudes toward Asians.
Conclusions: Experiencing racial prejudice among the Asian population during a challenging pandemic can cause poor psychological outcomes and exacerbate health disparities. The results suggest that conservative ideology, personal infection history, frequency of intergroup contact, traditional news exposure, and trust in social media emerge as positive predictors of prejudice against Asians and Asian Americans, whereas people who get COVID-19 news from left-leaning and balanced outlets show less prejudice. For those who have more trust in social media and digital news, frequent use of these two sources is associated with lower levels of prejudice. Our findings highlight the need to reshape traditional news discourses and use social media and mobile news apps to develop credible messages for combating racial prejudice against Asians.