Antitobacco media awareness of rural youth compared to suburban and urban youth in Indiana.

Purpose: This study examined the awareness and impact of antitobacco media messages among rural, suburban, and urban youth.

Method: Self-administered questionnaires were received from 1,622, 1,059, and 1,177 middle school (sixth, seventh, and eighth grade) students in rural, suburban, and urban locations, respectively. Logistic regression compared media awareness and impact among the groups, controlling for grade, gender, race, and smoking behavior.

A formative approach to strategic message targeting through soap operas: using selective processing theories.

In the past 2 decades, soap operas have been used extensively to attain prosocial change in other parts of the world. The role of the soap opera in achieving social change has become of special interest to strategic health message designers and planners in the United States. Before a strategic approach is implemented, however, researchers need to conduct formative research to interrogate the viability of soap operas and guide communication strategies.

The relation between health-orientation, provider-patient communication, and satisfaction: an individual-difference approach.

This article further examines the consumerist model of physician-patient interaction, documenting the role of health orientation in the realm of participatory communication in medical encounters. It articulates that physician-patient communication style mediates the positive relation between health orientation and relationship satisfaction. Based on a nationally representative sample of 2,636 respondents (48% men and 52% women) gathered in 1999, the study results support the mediating mechanism for key health-orientation variables such as health-consciousness attitude, health-information orientation, health-oriented beliefs, and healthy activities.

Theory and practice in health communication campaigns: a critical interrogation.

In recent reviews of the body of work on health campaigns, communication scholars discussed the importance of reflective thinking about the capacity of campaigns to effect change; this reflective thinking is especially important in the realm of the increasing gaps in society between the health rich and the health poor and the increasing marginalization of the poorer sections of society. This article critically reviews 3 central theories of health communication campaigns that represent the dominant cognitive approach: theory of reasoned action, health belief model, and the extended parallel process model. After articulating the limitations of these theoretical approaches, the article summarizes new directions in theory, methodology, and application of health communication campaigns targeting marginalized populations.

The readership of health magazines:the role of health orientation.

Two important trends have drawn the attention of medical practitioners and academics in recent years: the growth of health consciousness within the United States, and the proliferation in the number of health-oriented media outlets. In the face of the growing health care consumerism, accompanied by the proliferation of health-oriented media delivery systems, it is important to explore the audience profile of health magazines so these magazines may be effectively used for media planning. This paper applies a motivation-driven approach to health magazine readership, arguing that health orientation influences the readership of health magazines.

Developing a profile of consumer intention to seek out additional information beyond a doctor: the role of communicative and motivation variables.

Current reports in the medical literature demonstrate increasing acknowledgment of consumer involvement in autonomous health and medical information search beyond the doctor. Although multiple studies have segmented consumers into different groups based on the different levels of patient autonomy, the literature review revealed the lack of systematic attempts at elucidating the antecedents of autonomous consumer health information search. In this article, I examine the role of health consciousness as a mediator of the relation between communicative (interpersonal, community, print, television, and Internet) factors and health information seeking.

Reaching unhealthy eaters: applying a strategic approach to media vehicle choice.

Founded upon the argument that unhealthy eaters need to be reached through strategic choices that are driven by adequate formative research, this article examines the media consumption patterns of unhealthy eaters. Based on an analysis of the 1999 Lifestyle data, the article points out that healthy and unhealthy eaters differ systematically in their media choices. While television news is the most effective channel for reaching healthy eaters, television sports and entertainment-oriented Internet are the two major media categories consumed by the unhealthy eater.

An alternative approach to social capital: exploring the linkage between health consciousness and community participation.

In recent years, social capital has received a great deal of attention in health communication. The fundamental premise behind the increased attention to social capital is the positive health outcome of social capital. Social capital is treated as an antecedent to health.

Poverty, structural barriers, and health: a Santali narrative of health communication.

Recent years have witnessed a surge in scholarship that problematizes the linear, Eurocentric approach to international health communication and suggests the pressing need for a culture-centered approach. This author takes a culture-centered approach to exploring the Santali meanings of health in rural Bengal. The open-ended interviews conducted with the Santals bring to surface key issues and meaningful theories of health.

Primary sources of health information: comparisons in the domain of health attitudes, health cognitions, and health behaviors.

The recent growth in consumer autonomy in health care accompanied by the surge in the use of new media for health information gathering has led to an increasing scholarly interest in understanding the consumer health information search construct. This article explores consumer health information seeking in the realm of the primary sources of health information used by consumers. Based on an analysis of the 1999 HealthStyles data, the paper demonstrates that active communication channels such as interpersonal communication, print readership, and Internet communication serve as primary health information sources for health-conscious, health-information oriented individuals with strong health beliefs, and commitment to healthy activities.

Health attitudes, health cognitions, and health behaviors among Internet health information seekers: population-based survey.

Background: Using a functional theory of media use, this paper examines the process of health-information seeking in different domains of Internet use.

Objective: Based on an analysis of the 1999 HealthStyles data, this study was designed to demonstrate that people who gather information on the Internet are more health-oriented than non-users of Internet health information.

Methods: The Porter Novelli HealthStyles database, collected annually since 1995, is based on the results of nationally representative postal mail surveys.

Trusted online sources of health information: differences in demographics, health beliefs, and health-information orientation.

Background: The recent surge in online health information and consumer use of such information has led to expert speculations and prescriptions about the credibility of health information on the World Wide Web. In spite of the growing concern over online health information sources, existing research reveals a lacuna in the realm of consumer evaluations of trustworthiness of different health information sources on the Internet.

Objective: This study examines consumer evaluation of sources of health information on the World Wide Web, comparing the demographic, attitudinal, and cognitive differences between individuals that most trust a particular source of information and individuals that do not trust the specific source of health information.

The linear interaction model of personality effects in health communication.

The recent growth of research in message tailoring has opened up new avenues for researchers to use personality variables for message delivery. This article builds on research on idiocentrism and self-monitoring to propose a framework for message appeal construction. Based on a scheme for appeal categorization borrowed from commercial marketing, the article suggests that low and high idiocentrics differ from each other in the way they respond to appeal types.