Public responses and parasocial relationships following senator John Fetterman's depression disclosure.

Research has found that when a public figure discloses an illness, it can motivate members of the public to reconsider their own health behaviors, particularly when they have a parasocial relationship with the public figure. When the public figure is a politician, it is possible that partisan differences may also influence emotional, attentional, and behavioral responses to health news. We empirically examined public responses to Democrat John Fetterman's disclosure of his treatment for depression shortly after he was inducted into the United States Senate as the junior senator from Pennsylvania in 2023.

The Impact of Celebrity and Influencer Illness Disclosures.

When celebrities, political figures, influencers, or anyone with a large following publicly disclose an illness or die, the news becomes a de facto public health campaign. Until health communicators began studying such disclosures and the effects of the following waves of media coverage, however, it was not known to what extent these events impacted the public. A growing body of research has empirically documented these events and examined the factors that predict which types of audiences are most affected and why.

Stories to Prevent Cancer: A Pilot Study Using Cancer Survivor Narratives to Increase Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Intentions.

Introduction: Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination rates are lower than other recommended adolescent vaccines. Cancer survivor narratives are used to promote cancer prevention and control, but little is known about their impact on adolescent HPV vaccination.

Objective: This pilot study explored the feasibility and effects of a video education intervention using a cancer survivor narrative to improve parents' attitudes toward and intentions to get the HPV vaccine.

An Experimental Test of the Effects of Public Mockery of a Social Media Health Campaign: Implications for Theory and Health Organizations' Social Media Strategies.

This study explored how social media users' mocking of a public health campaign can affect other users' emotions, cognitions, and behavioral intentions. Inspired by public mocking of the CDC's "Say No to Raw Dough" campaign aiming to prevent food poisoning caused by eating raw flour-based products, this experiment ( = 681) employed a 2 (Public responses to a PSA: Mocking or serious) x 3 (Organizational response to public responses: Self-mocking, serious, or none) + 1 (control condition) design. Statistical tests revealed that user-generated mocking can lower intentions to avoid the health risk by decreasing perceptions of injunctive norms (that is, seeing others mock a public health campaign resulted in weaker perceptions that others think you should avoid the risky behavior).

Adoption and Discontinuance of Innovation Packages: A Longitudinal Study of Transitions in COVID-19 Mitigation.

The past decades have seen growing interest and application of interventions targeting the change of multiple behaviors at once. We advance this work by using the diffusion of innovations theory (DOI) to consider constellations of behaviors as : multiple innovations that are logically related, interdependent in their use or effects, and often promoted as a set (Rogers, 2003). In addition, we embraced DOI's focus on behavioral decisions as a continual process that can include adoption and discontinuance over time, especially as new innovations (e.

Information Seeking and Avoidance in the COVID-19 Pandemic as a Function of Political Ideology and National Context: A Survey Comparing the US and Germany.

The COVID-19 pandemic sparked a globally heightened need for scientific information. At the same time, the abundance of information led to tendencies of media fatigue and information avoidance. Both information seeking and avoidance are embedded in a specific national context, in which conditions of and measures against the pandemic may differ dramatically.

Extending the Theory of Normative Social Behavior: Collective Norms, Opinion Leadership, and Masking During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Novel, public behaviors, such as masking, should be susceptible to normative influence. This paper advances the theory of normative social behavior by considering a new set of moderators of normative influence - superdiffuser traits - and by clarifying the antecedents and consequences of exposure to collective norms. We use data from a two-wave survey of a cohort living in one U.

Associations Between Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Decisions and Exposure to Vaccine Information in Social Media.

Purpose: Exposure to different types of vaccine information in social media can result in parents making disparate vaccine decisions, including not following national guidelines for human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination. We sought to characterize parents' exposure to and engagement with information about HPV vaccination in social media, and the associations between exposure to such information and vaccine decisions for their adolescent children.

Methods: In 2019, we conducted a web-based survey with a national sample of 1073 parents of adolescents who use social media.

Perceived risk, emotions, and stress in response to COVID-19: The interplay of media use and partisanship.

Relationships between risk perceptions, emotions, and stress are well-documented, as are interconnections between stress, emotion, and media use. During the early COVID-19 pandemic, the public responded psychologically to the threat posed by the pandemic, and frequently utilized media for information and entertainment. However, we lack a comprehensive picture of how perceived risk, emotion, stress, and media affected each other longitudinally during this time.

Social media exposure, interpersonal network, and tampon use intention: A multigroup comparison based on network structure.

The scarcity of tampons in China has attracted scholarly attention. Extending the theory of planned behavior with social network structure, this cross-sectional online survey ( = 763) found that exposure to tampon-related information on social media was positively related to Chinese women's tampon use intentions. This association was mediated through attitudes, descriptive norms, and self-efficacy toward using tampons.

The Effects of Embedded Skin Cancer Interventions on Sun-Safety Attitudes and Attention Paid to Tan Women on Instagram.

Background And Objectives: Because of high skin cancer risks for young women, it is vital that effective interventions reach and influence this demographic. Visual social media platforms, like Instagram, are popular with young women and are an appropriate intervention site; yet, they also host competing images idealizing tan skin. The present study tested the ability of digital sun-safety interventions to affect self-control-related emotions and visual attention to subsequent tan-ideal images as well as sun-safety attitudes.

Who is your Fitspiration? An Exploration of Strong and Weak Ties with Emotions, Body Satisfaction, and the Theory of Planned Behavior.

Physical inactivity has become an increasingly important concern for public health. "Fitspiration" social media posts may influence attitudes and intentions toward exercising. An online survey ( = 485) was conducted to examine the potential for fitspiration content from weak and strong ties to shape user emotions, attitudes, norms and behaviors related to exercising.

The "celebrity canary in the coal mine for the coronavirus": An examination of a theoretical model of celebrity illness disclosure effects.

Rationale: On March 11, 2020, actor Tom Hanks announced via social media that he had been diagnosed with COVID-19. Previous research has found celebrity illness disclosures to influence behavior, but during the uncertainty of a pandemic, the effects of such a disclosure were unclear.

Objective: To test the proposed Celebrity Illness Disclosure Effects (CIDE) model, demonstrating how an illness disclosure, communicated through mediated and interpersonal channels, may shape willingness to engage in prevention behaviors.

Appearance, Friends, and Feelings: A Two-Study Exploration of Young Women's Emotional Associations and Indoor Tanning Frequency.

Background: Knowledge of its potential cancer risk is often not enough to motivate individuals to avoid indoor tanning. Previous research has found that emotions toward indoor tanning and appearance motivations may prompt people to continue despite the risks.

Methods: We conducted two online surveys of US young adult women.

Health information source use and trust among a vulnerable rural disparities population.

Purpose: Because rural residents, particularly those near mining sites, are susceptible to numerous environmental health hazards, it is important to gain deeper insights into their use and trust of health information, which they may employ to help recognize symptoms, learn ways to reduce exposure, or find health care.

Methods: We surveyed residents (N = 101) of rural Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia to assess predictors of health information source use and trust. A project manager administered face-to-face paper and pencil questionnaires assessing demographics, health status, smoking behavior, and health information use and source trust.

A Mixed Methods Inquiry into the Role of Tom Hanks' COVID-19 Social Media Disclosure in Shaping Willingness to Engage in Prevention Behaviors.

Given the vast amounts of COVID-19-related messages flooding mediated and interpersonal communication channels during the global pandemic, celebrity COVID-19 disclosures offer rare opportunities to cut through message fatigue and apathy and garner the attention of wide swaths of the public. We conducted a convergent mixed method analysis of audience responses to actor Tom Hanks' March 11, 2020 disclosure of his COVID-19 diagnosis via social media. We collected our data within 24 hours of his announcement, allowing us to quickly capture emotional and cognitive responses to the announcement and to assess both demographic and psychosocial differences in types of people who heard the news in this time frame and those who had not.

Mental Health and Its Predictors during the Early Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic Experience in the United States.

To date, there has been relatively little published research on the mental health impacts of COVID-19 for the general public at the beginning of the U.S.' experience of the pandemic, or the factors associated with stress, anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic growth during this time.

Online media use and HPV vaccination intentions in mainland China: integrating marketing and communication perspectives to improve public health.

This study investigates the role of media in shaping human papilloma virus vaccination intentions in mainland China by applying both communication and marketing-focused theoretical frameworks in order to better understand ways to increase vaccine uptake across young men and women in China. An online survey (N = 359) revealed direct effects of online information consumption on perceived scarcity of the vaccine, as well as an indirect effect via perceived influence of media on others. Scarcity perceptions, in turn, predicted vaccine attitudes and behavioral intentions.

Connections between viewing media about President Trump's dietary habits and fast food consumption intentions: Political differences and implications for public health.

A nationally representative sample (N = 1050) responded to a survey testing possible connections between Americans' attention to media about President Donald J. Trump's preference for fast food, their perceptions of Trump, and public perceptions and behavioral intentions regarding fast food consumption. This survey utilized measures aimed at integrating theory about audience responses to celebrity health issues with the Theory of Planned Behavior and found a significant positive relationship between attention to media about Trump's diet and perceptions that fast food is socially acceptable, as well as intentions to consume it.

The Role of Media-Induced Nostalgia after a Celebrity Death in Shaping Audiences' Social Sharing and Prosocial Behavior.

When a celebrity dies and news coverage repeatedly pays homages to the celebrity's life, it is possible that audiences experience nostalgia as they fondly recall past memories of that celebrity. Nostalgia has yet to be examined as a mechanism of audience behavior related to the health condition associated with that celebrity. As such, we proposed a conceptual model of the interplay of predictors of feeling nostalgic after a celebrity death (i.

Measuring Trivialization of Mental Illness: Developing a Scale of Perceptions that Mental Illness Symptoms are Beneficial.

Much of the extant research on representations of mental illness in the media have focused on stigmatization. The negative effects of these stigmatizing portrayals on individuals with mental illness are serious. However, recent scholarship has identified another phenomenon in the mediated portrayal of mental illness whereby these conditions are trivialized.

Connections between sources of health and beauty information and indoor tanning behavior among college women.

This study tested how media, family, and peer sources of health and beauty information predict indoor tanning (IT) beliefs and behavior. 210 undergraduate women at a state university in the southeastern United States. Respondents completed a survey about sources of health and beauty information, IT beliefs, and IT behavior.

A Closer Look at Descriptive Norms and Indoor Tanning: Investigating the Intermediary Role of Positive and Negative Outcome Expectations.

Indoor tanning is a risky behavior that dramatically increases skin cancer risk. Researchers from multiple disciplines aim to better understand this behavior to develop interventions and messages to curtail it. As such, we investigated the role of social norms and outcome expectations as predictors of tanning behavior as part of a larger test of constructs included in the Theory of Normative Social Behavior.

An Experimental Test of the Roles of Audience Involvement and Message Frame in Shaping Public Reactions to Celebrity Illness Disclosures.

Much research has investigated what happens when celebrities disclose an illness (via media) to the public. While audience involvement (i.e.

Uplifting Fear Appeals: Considering the Role of Hope in Fear-Based Persuasive Messages.

Fear appeal research has focused, understandably, on fear as the primary emotion motivating attitude and behavior change. However, while the threat component of fear appeals associates with fear responses, a fear appeals' efficacy component likely associates with a different emotional experience: hope. Drawing from appraisal theories of emotion in particular, this article theorizes about the role of hope in fear appeals, testing hypotheses with two existing data sets collected within the context of sun safety messages.