Health Communication Commons^™

Achoo! Three Major Us Newspapers Reporting On The Flu Before And After H1n1, Philip A. Harris

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The flu is the most common and also the most preventable health risk and crisis in the United States. This research is a quantitative content analysis of flu coverage appearing in 102 articles from The Washington Post, USA Today, and The New York Times. It examines the differences in the coverage three years before and after the H1N1 pandemic and evaluates them for the use of fundamental constructs in health, risk, and crisis communication theories such as severity, susceptibility, efficacy, excuse, justification, intention, expertise, and trustworthiness. Most significant differences were found between excuse and justification as well as with …

Contesting “Obligation”: Memory, Morality, And The (Re)Construction Of Divestment Narratives, Christina Quint

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

Leaders in the medical field representing organizations abroad such as the British Medical Association (BMA) and MedAct have called for health care organizations to divest from fossil fuels, on the grounds that it is hypocritical for health care leaders to take the Hippocratic Oath and be implicated in the health impacts for which the burning of fossil fuels is responsible. The emerging discourse highlighting the imperative to divest draws parallels to the health care sector’s leadership in divesting from tobacco in the 1990s on the grounds of its health implications. Even before the current fossil fuel divestment movement and the …

My Body, Our Illness: Negotiating Relational And Identity Tensions Of Living With Mental Illness, Erin E. Casey

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

This thesis uses an autoethnographic methodology informed by narrative theory to interrogate my experiences of relational and identity tensions as both a consumer of mental health services and an advocate for the care, autonomy and acceptance of those who identify with concepts of mental illness recovery. In doing so I am using my personal diaries and medical records from the past seven years as archival data to assist me in recovering and reconstructing narratives that represent meaningful truths about these experiences. I also call on heavily what Carolyn Ellis (2004) calls "relational ethics" because I know that while I am …

Padded Assumptions: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Patriarchal Menstruation Discourse, Kathryn M. Lese

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

In 2015, Rupi Kaur’s photography project featuring a menstruating woman was censored on Instagram, a photo sharing social media platform. The menstruation censorship created a surge in public media discourse about what is and is not appropriate to discuss about menstruation. Menstruation communication is often discrete or invisible in dominant discourse and focuses of medicalization rather than the social norms of “performing menstruation”. This thesis explores menstruation communication in public media discourse and examines how it empowers and disempowers the menstruating female body. Themes including the everyday language of menstruation, patriarchal censorship of women’s bodies, shame and stigma in menstruation …

Advocacy Campaign For Women's Reproductive Health And Access On Social Media, Rachel Crist, Jules Montes, Lauren Frank

Student Research Symposium

Advocacy organizations increasingly rely on social media (e.g. Twitter hashtags) to foster issue awareness. Social media platforms can be promising communication channels to reach diverse audiences; however, it is unclear how effective these campaigns are at reaching audience members whose views do not align with the campaign. Using diffusion of innovations as a theoretical framework, this study examines the #BirthControlHelpedMe campaign to better understand the response to an advocacy campaign promoted via Twitter. Focus groups were conducted separately for men and women. The moderator led participants in a semi-structured discussion of perceptions of birth control. Participants were then shown example …

Family Communication Motivating Athletics Over Generations: A Mixed Method Expansion Of Self-Determination Theory, Elizabeth Hanson Smith

Dissertations

Mixed methods were utilized to test the communication within a model of self-determination (Deci & Ryan, 1985) in a multi-generational sports framework in order to argue for an update to self-determination theory (SDT) that includes a communication element. Fourteen qualitative research questions were posed to examine how communication functioned to move tennis players, golfers, and runners from the initial family influence in participating, to integrating family values to the extent that participants modeled athletic values to offspring and community members. Three hypotheses correlating the variables of self-efficacy, autonomy-controlling and autonomy-supportive family communication supported the argument that communication functioned to develop …

Facilitating Effective Communication Between First Responders And Older Adults During Fall Incidents: An Educational Intervention, Krystin M. Beeman, Erica L. Berger, Isabel A. Cabezas, Nicole M. Mathews

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

PURPOSE. The purpose of this project was to provide first responders with communication strategies for older adults that may help when responding to fall- related calls. General information was also provided to First Responders on working with older adults with a focus on the aging process, fall risk factors, and communications strategies.

METHODS. A series of educational sessions to first responders at a local fire district were developed and presented by occupational therapy students. Materials were developed by presenters from evidence-based resources and tailored to the target population. Each presentation focused on statistics about older adults, the aging process, fall …

The Ebola Crisis: A Communicative Response From Samaritan's Purse, Bailie Porter

Masters Theses

Crisis does not discriminate. It can strike without warning, at any time or place. Managers, organizations, and leaders alike, must be ready at all times to respond to them, whether they are planned for or not. An efficient and quick response is especially necessary when health crises or natural disasters strike, because human life may be at stake. Crisis communication has become more and more important in a world that is daily filled with catastrophes. This study uses W. Timothy Coomb’s situational crisis communication theory as a lens to view the Ebola crisis. The purpose of the research is to …

A One Health Message About Bats Increases Intentions To Follow Public Health Guidance On Bat Rabies, Hang Lu, Katherine A. Mccomas, Danielle E. Buttke, Sungjong Roh, Margaret A. Wild

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Since 1960, bat rabies variants have become the greatest source of human rabies deaths in the United States. Improving rabies awareness and preventing human exposure to rabid bats remains a national public health priority today. Concurrently, conservation of bats and the ecosystem benefits they provide is of increasing importance due to declining populations of many bat species. This study used a visitor-intercept experiment (N = 521) in two U.S. national parks where human and bat interactions occur on an occasional basis to examine the relative persuasiveness of four messages differing in the provision of benefit and uncertainty information on intentions …

Message Strategies In Korean Cosmetic Surgery Websites, Gawon Kim

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate message strategies used in South Korean cosmetic surgery websites. The paper uses Taylor’s six-segment message strategy model to analyze the Korean sample websites. The outcome of the content analysis revealed that Informational and Transformational strategies were both equivalently used. Ration and ego strategies were the most frequently practiced within the Informational and Transformational divisions.

Preference-Sensitive Decisions Of Patients With Metastatic Breast Cancer: The Need For Decision Support, Julie Van De Haterd, Helene Voogdt-Pruis, Ilse Raats, Rianne Van Den Brink, Haske Van Veenendaal

Patient Experience Journal

Because of disease progression and the increasing number of treatment options, patients with metastatic breast cancer face multiple decisions over time. Our aim was to identify the multiple decisions patients with metastatic breast cancer face in order to decide which decision aids will be developed. First, we analyzed the clinical practice guidelines to identify decisions encountered by patients with metastatic breast cancer and healthcare professionals. Furthermore, an online questionnaire for patients, a focus group interview with patients and interviews with healthcare professionals were performed. In addition, we performed a systematic literature research and internet search to identify relevant decision support …

Let’S Move! Campaign: A Social Discourse In Relation To Family Communication, Kao Chang, Shelby Groen, Gina Santella

Celebrating Scholarship & Creativity Day (2011-2017)

The Let’s Move! campaign is a social discourse for nutritional education that impacts families and they ways they communicate. Families are affected by the outside in terms of the systems approach concept of openness as the entire family is impacted due to the wholeness component. Family members experience dialectic struggles as some family members desire to be autonomous and others want to be connected. Another dialectic struggle presented by relational dialectics is the dialectic of predictability and novelty. This dialectic stresses the importance of repetition and the contradicting idea of newness. The roles of family members are established to hierarchical …

First-Responders And Emergency Department Healthcare Provider Interactions During Emergency Situations: A Grounded Theory Study, Jennifer A. Mohaupt

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Interactions between and among first-responders and emergency department (ED) healthcare providers impact the way in which patients are managed during emergency situations. The purpose of this study was to develop a grounded theory to explain the interactions between and among first-responders and ED healthcare providers during emergency situations. Interprofessional collaboration and teamwork has been extensively studied, however little is known about interactions that include first-responders. This study was guided by Strauss and Corbin’s (1990) approach to grounded theory. Data were collected through 256 hours of first-responder and ED observational opportunities and informal interviews with accompanying detailed field notes. As well, …

Discourses Of Madness And Me: Critical Examinations Of Western Discourses Of Madness And Psychiatry, Erin E. Casey

Showcase of Graduate Student Scholarship and Creative Activities

This paper is a critical examination of western medical paradigms alongside histories of psychiatry that argues for a culturally situated approach to mental health advocacy that maintains the importance of the physiological foundations of traditional biomedical approaches to disease. In doing so, I examine the discourses of madness, and society’s attempts to control and “fix” what is deemed “mad” through a historical lens. My position and critique utilizes a reflexive narrative process embracing my identities both as a consumer of mental health services and as an advocate for those with mental illnesses.

An Analysis Of Kaiser Permanente’S Crisis Communication Strategy, Ingrid Greene

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Issues management in today’s quickly changing world can be a very delicate, and in the case of the spread of Ebola, with legal implications. Kaiser Permanente (KP) became deeply involved due to the involvement of its medical staff during the spread of the disease in the United States. All hospitals and medical staff in the U.S. are under the direction of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Center for Disease Control (CDC), including KP. In addition, KP needed to ensure the safety of the patients it serves. This case study examines how the corporate communications team at KP …

Development And Implementation Of A Culturally Tailored, Community-Based Intervention To Raise Awareness Of Brain Health Among African Americans, Mary Ann K. Hall, Ashani Johnson-Turbes, Felicia T. Fuller, Petra Niles, Shileah Cantey-Mcdonald

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

African Americans bear a disproportionate burden of age-related cognitive impairment in the United States compared to Whites or Hispanics. African Americans experience greater prevalence, higher risk, and lower rates of treatment and diagnosis for dementia. In response to these health disparities the Alzheimer’s Association developed and implemented the Healthy Brain Initiative (HBI) demonstration project, the first community-level intervention to help reduce health disparities related to cognitive impairment among African Americans. The HBI promotes awareness of brain health, understanding of the heart-brain connection, and seeks to increase African American baby boomers engagement in health-protective behaviors to promote brain and overall health. …

An Identification Of The Social And Emotional Needs Of People Living With Post-Lingual Hearing Loss, Dianne Briffa, Fiona Davidson, Danielle Ferndale Ms

JADARA

Hearing loss is associated with challenges in achieving effective communication which can constrain an individual’s ability to participate in social and work environments, affecting their social and emotional well-being. Through a thematic analysis of focus groups, interview and survey responses from 41 people experiencing post-lingual hearing loss, we identified an overarching theme of adjusting to impaired communication and three sub-themes in which we were able to identify the unmet social and emotional needs of people who are hard of hearing. In light of our analysis we discuss and offer recommendations specific to meeting the needs of this population.

Formative Research Regarding Kidney Disease Health Information In A Latino American Sample: Associations Among Threat, Efficacy, Frame, And Behavioral Intent, Katheryn Maguire, Jay Gardner, Pradeep Sopory, Guowei Jian, Marcia Roach, Joe Amschlinger, Marcia Moreno, Garey Pettey, Gianfranco Piccone

Guowei Jian

Using prospect theory and the extended parallel process model, this study examined the effect of gain/loss message framing on perceptions of severity, susceptibility, response efficacy, and self efficacy (derived from the extended parallel process model), as well as perception of message effectiveness and behavioral intention in a community based Latino American sample. Results indicated no significant differences between a gain- and loss-frame for any of the outcome variables. In addition, message effectiveness, susceptibility, and response efficacy were the best predictors of intention to engage in early testing behavior.

The Role Of Spokesperson In Ambiguous And Complex Crises: The Cdc And Anthrax, M. Scott Barrett, Kathryn C. Hasbargen, Anthony Ocana, Vern Markey, Matthew P. Berg, Scott Grand, Timothy L. Sellnow

Speaker & Gavel

This study evaluates the role of spokespersons in complex organizations facing ambiguous crises. Specifically, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) response to the anthrax crisis in 2001 is offered as a case study. A content analysis of the print media coverage of the anthrax crisis reveals that many claiming affiliation with the CDC spoke on behalf of the organization, resulting in what appeared to be a fragmented CDC message. The study concludes that the CDC’s failure to provide a central spokesperson contributed to the ambiguity of the situation.

Cal Poly Sustainability Activities Newsletter Design, Alek C. Johnson

Communication Studies

This project was designed and intended for the use of Cal Poly's Sustainability and Energy department. This project will ultimately influence the upcoming development and implementation of an official Cal Poly Sustainability Newsletter.