Finding the Invisible Leader: When Opinion Leader Identification is Impossible.

Opinion leaders are increasingly recruited to diffuse information, attitudes, and behaviors to serve communication campaigns. However, this has historically required opinion leader identification before launching the campaign. identification is impossible in many contexts, such as when addressing unfamiliar topics or insular communities.

Speaking of Values: Value-Expressive Communication and Exercise Intentions.

This study introduces the concept of value-expressive communication and examines its relationship with behavioral intent. Value-expressive communication is conceptualized as the verbal output of a value-expressive attitude. Value-expressive communication about exercise is examined in relationship to strength of religious faith, exercise attitudes, communication frequency, and intentions to exercise among a sample of self-identified Christians.

"Sharing Hope and Healing": A Culturally Tailored Social Media Campaign to Promote Living Kidney Donation and Transplantation Among Native Americans.

In this article, the authors discuss a community-based participatory research (CBPR)-driven and culturally tailored social media campaign to promote living kidney donation and transplantation (LKDT) serving Native American communities, who are disproportionately burdened by kidney failure. The effort represents a collaboration among researchers, tribal leaders and community members, medical centers, and other stakeholders to facilitate health promotion related to LKDT among the broader Native American community. Campaign objectives were collaboratively established by the researchers and stakeholders, and the campaign approach and materials were likewise developed in consultation with the community.

Native Americans' Memorable Conversations About Living Kidney Donation and Transplant.

Living kidney donation and transplant (LKDT) offers a path of hope for patients on indefinite dialysis treatment. However, identification of a living donor can be challenging; initiating these conversations is difficult. Our study analyzes memorable conversations about LKDT that occurred in response to an LKDT campaign targeted to Native Americans.

Breastfeeding Support in the Workplace: The Relationships Among Breastfeeding Support, Work-Life Balance, and Job Satisfaction.

Background: Women are increasingly faced with decisions about how to combine breastfeeding with work, but few researchers have directly measured how breastfeeding relates to the work-life interface. Research aim: The authors examined how perceptions of work enhancement of personal life and work interference with personal life were influenced by workplace breastfeeding support, including organizational, manager, and coworker support, as well as adequate time to express human milk. Then, we examined how workplace breastfeeding support predicted work-life variables and job satisfaction.

Brookings supports breastfeeding: using public deliberation as a community-engaged approach to dissemination of research.

Empirical evidence demonstrates myriad benefits of breastfeeding for mother and child, along with benefits to businesses that support breastfeeding. Federal and state legislation requires workplace support for pumping and provides protections for public breastfeeding. Yet, many are unaware of these laws, and thus, support systems remain underdeveloped.

Communicatively Making Sense of Doulas within the U.S. Master Birth Narrative: Doulas as Liminal Characters.

Doulas-or designated women experienced in childbirth who provide support to a birthing mother-have been shown to improve mothers' medical outcomes, but they are relatively underused in U.S. births.

Policies aren't enough: the importance of interpersonal communication about workplace breastfeeding support.

Background: Formal policies can establish guidelines and expectations for workplace breastfeeding support. However, interpersonal communication between employees and managers is the context where such policies are explained, negotiated, and implemented. As such, this article focuses on interpersonal communication about breastfeeding support in the workplace.

Social networks and the communication of norms about prenatal care in rural Mexico.

Many normative beliefs are shared and learned through interpersonal communication, yet research on norms typically focuses on their effects rather than the communication that shapes them. This study focused on interpersonal communication during pregnancy to uncover (a) the nature of pregnancy-related communication and (b) normative information transmitted through such communication. Results from interviews with pregnant women living in rural Mexico revealed limited social networks; often, only a woman's mother or the baby's father were consulted about prenatal care decisions.

The Impact of Personal Metaphors and Memorable Interpersonal Communication on Body Satisfaction.

Memorable messages about body size can have profound negative psychological and emotional effects on body image and personal health. We found that both men and women recalled more negative than positive memorable messages about their body appearance and size. Participants who reported receiving negative memorable messages also revealed stronger current body dissatisfaction and poorer self-image than participants who reported positive memorable messages.

Combating weight-based cyberbullying on Facebook with the dissenter effect.

Weight-based cyberbullying is prevalent among youth and adolescents and can have lasting negative psychological effects on the victims. One way to combat these negative effects is through modeling dissenting behavior. When a bystander challenges the bully or supports the victim, this models dissenting behavior.

Social influence in child care centers: a test of the theory of normative social behavior.

Child care centers are a unique context for studying communication about the social and personal expectations about health behaviors. The theory of normative social behavior (TNSB; Rimal & Real, 2005 ) provides a framework for testing the role of social and psychological influences on handwashing behaviors among child care workers. A cross-sectional survey of child care workers in 21 centers indicates that outcome expectations and group identity increase the strength of the relationship between descriptive norms and handwashing behavior.

Communicating stigma about body size.

Body-size stigma is a well-documented phenomenon, particularly for large bodies (Puhl & Brownell, 2003), but few studies have investigated the features of body-related stigma communication. This article uses Smith's (2007a) stigma communication framework to analyze descriptions of male and female bodies of various sizes for their stigma content. Analyses reveal that elements of stigma communication appeared in 46.