Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Illegal Yet Developmentally Normative: A Descriptive Analysis Of Young, Urban Adolescents' Dating And Sexual Behaviour In Cape Town, South Africa, Aník Gevers, Cathy Mathews, Pam Cupp, Marcia Russell, Rachel Jewkes

Communication Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: In South Africa, it is illegal for adolescents under age 16 years to engage in any sexual behaviour whether kissing, petting, or penetrative sex, regardless of consent. This cross-sectional study investigated the extent to which young adolescents engage in various sexual behaviours and the associations between dating status and sexual behaviours.

METHOD: Grade 8 adolescents (N = 474, ages 12--15 years, mean = 14.14 years) recruited from Cape Town schools completed surveys providing information about their sociodemographic backgrounds, dating experience, sexual behaviour, and substance use.

RESULTS: Lower hierarchy sexual behaviours, such as kissing (71.4% of girls; 88.4% of boys), …

Commentary: Changing The Channel: Public Health Communication In The 21st Century, Anna Goodman Hoover

Frontiers in Public Health Services and Systems Research

This commentary asserts the need for research examining the use and efficacy of social media as a tool for meeting public health stakeholders’ information needs. The author points to several potential research questions for the field, situates studies addressing these questions within the PHSSR Research Agenda, and introduces the work of Harris et al. that is included in this issue of Frontiers. The commentary closes with a call for horizontal stakeholder communication that supports evidence-based decision-making.

The Nature And Perceived Influence Of Lifestyle Discussions With Older Adults In Primary Care, Shoshana H. Bardach

Theses and Dissertations--Gerontology

The Nature and Perceived Influence of Lifestyle Discussions with Older Adults in Primary Care Rationale: A healthy diet and physical activity help with disease prevention and disease management and can promote quality of life regardless of the age at which an individual begins engaging in these behaviors. Despite the value of these health behaviors, many older adults do not follow lifestyle recommendations. Given that older adults frequently interact with the healthcare system, primary care providers are well situated to counsel older adults to improve their health behaviors. Unfortunately, we do not know how to most effectively engage in this counseling. …

The Impact Of The Internet On The Sexual Health Of Adolescents: A Brief Review, Julia Springate, Hatim A. Omar

Pediatrics Faculty Publications

The object of this review is to summarize the impact of the Internet on the sexual health of adolescents. This article examines the use of websites, blogs and chat rooms as sources for sexual health information for adolescents. The influence of Internet pornography on sexual behaviors and attitudes is addressed. The use of the Internet as a place to find sexual partners is also assessed. During a time of great physical, emotional and sexual change, the Internet is playing a huge role in the decisions adolescents are making, both positive and negative.

An Exploratory Study Of Social Support For Health-Related Purposes On Weibo In China, Chen Chen

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

This study explores how people with medical concerns seek and perceive social support via Weibo—a social network site in China. The study conducts both a content analysis and an in-depth interview for a comprehensive understanding of the nature of social support on Weibo. Altogether 2548 postings and replies from four Weibo support groups—the Breast Cancer Group, the Arthritis Group, Baby Eczema Group and Children’s Health Group—were categorized into 9 types with a deductive thematic analysis; twenty participants from these four Weibo groups were recruited in the in-depth interview to explore how people seek and perceive social support from Weibo. Weibo …

A Message-Centered Approach To Understanding Young Women’S Decision-Making About Hpv Vaccination, Katharine J. Head

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

The HPV vaccine represents an important step in the primary prevention of cervical cancer, yet uptake rates for the vaccine remain below what is needed to establish "herd immunity" from the virus. While many studies have examined both psychosocial and communication factors affecting HPV vaccination decisions, this study adopts a unique approach to understand the communication environment within which this health decision happens, such as the many and sometimes conflicting messages about vaccine efficacy and safety guiding young women's decisions. Using the message convergence framework, this project identifies how further study of converging and diverging messages in the communication environment …

Marijuana Behaviors In The Arabian Gulf (Gcc): Applying Theory Of Planned Behavior, Nola Almageni

Theses and Dissertations--Communication

The theory of planned behavior is a great tool for understanding predictors of drug use, specifically marijuana. Although the theory has been applied in the U.S. and European context, research on the predictors of behavioral intention for marijuana use within the Arabian Gulf context is limited. This thesis provides an overview of the theory of planned behavior as used in the U.S. and European context. An argument for the need to better understand predictors of behavioral intentions to use drugs, in the Arabian Gulf Region, prior to developing interventions and preventions is presented. Data was collected from 95 participants between …

Untangling Neoliberalism’S Gordian Knot: Cancer Prevention And Control Services For Rural Appalachian Populations, George F. Bills

Theses and Dissertations--Sociology

In eastern Kentucky, as in much of central Appalachia, current local storylines narrate the frictions and contradictions involved in the structural transition from a post-WWII Fordist industrial economy and a Keynesian welfare state to a Post-Fordist service economy and Neoliberal hollow state, starving for energy to sustain consumer indulgence (Jessop, 1993; Harvey, 2003; 2005). Neoliberalism is the ideological force redefining the “societal infrastructure of language” that legitimates this transition, in part by redefining the key terms of democracy and citizenship, as well as valorizing the market, the individual, and technocratic innovation (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999; Harvey, 2005). This project develops …