bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Rapid restructurization of conformationally-distinct alpha-synuclein amyloid fibrils at an elevated temperature
Authors: Ziaunys Mantas , Sakalauskas Andrius , Mikalauskaite Kamile , Smirnovas Vytautas
Published: September 2022

Protein aggregation in the form of amyloid fibrils is linked with the onset and progression of more than 30 amyloidoses, including multiple neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease. Despite countless studies and years of research, the process of such aggregate formation is still not fully understood. One peculiar aspect of amyloids is that they appear to be capable of undergoing structural rearrangements even after the fibrils have already formed. Such a phenomenon was reported to occur in the case of alpha-synuclein and amyloid beta aggregates after a long period of incubation. In this work, we examine whether incubation at an elevated temperature can induce the restructurization of four different conformation alpha-synuclein amyloid fibrils. We show that this structural alteration occurs in a relatively brief time period, when the aggregates are incubated at 60 °C. Additionally, it appears that during this process multiple conformationally-distinct alpha-synuclein fibrils all shift towards an identical secondary structure.
The Operational and Structural System of Regional Rural Banks in Financing Agriculture in Bareilly
Authors: Baboo Akash , Ramchandra .
Published: September 2022

A majority (i.e., 30%) of respondent’s annual income has been fall in range of below 1,00,000. Collected data shows that 92.45 per cent of incomes come from interest earned and of the Bank in the ending year 2020 as against last year’s position of 94.15 per cent while in ending year 2021, 90.49 per cent income comes from interest earned. Other income contributed 9.51 per cent of the total income during the ending year 2021 as against the last two years 2020 and 2019, figure of 7.55 per cent and 5.85 per cent. Rs. 1126.78 crores (51.56 per cent) of the amount were disbursed by the bank in ending 2021 on interest on deposits and the Reserve Bank of India compared to the disbursements of the last two years (2020 and 2019) on those paid interest of Rs. 1054.21 (51.38 per cent) crores and Rs.964.58 crores (50.03 per cent). The second major expense of the bank is operating expenses recorded as Rs. 546.27 crores (25.00 per cent) in the end of 2021 compared to the expenses of the last two years (2020 and 2019) for the operational expenses paid were Rs. 525.88 (25.63 per cent) crores and Rs. 504.99 crores (28.29 percent). Business per store was Rs. 36.32 crore in 2020-21 and business per employee was Rs. 9.01 crore in the same year.
General Outlook of Identified Genomic Regions/QTLs Associated with Salt Tolerance Traits in Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.)
Authors: Chaurasia Shiksha
Published: September 2022

Salinity stress declines plant growth and its efficiency, which is leading to a substantial reduction in crop yield. Presently, the worldwide challenges are to meet the food consumption demand, along with the decreasing crop productivity per unit area at the same time of stress environment. Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is one of the major cereal grain crops and losses gain yield exceeds the 60% due to salinity stress. Now, it is imperative to develop a comprehensive understanding of salt tolerance contrivances and the assortment of reliable tolerance indices is crucial for breeding salt-tolerant wheat cultivars. The specific chromosomal location of these salt-tolerant genes or genetic loci has also been partially characterized through QTLs mapping that cannot use directly in breeding programs. This information helps the efficient transfer of these genes into other crop cultivars through molecular breeding tools. This review highlights the using association techniques for identifying novel QTLs/genomic regions associated with salinity tolerance in wheat that can help to improve salt tolerance in wheat through marker-assisted breeding programs.
Therapeutic use of medicinal cannabis in people with degenerative neurological disease / Uso terapêutico da cannabis medicinal em pessoas com doença neurológica degenerativa
Authors: Silva Roni Robson da , Silva Leandro Andrade da , Santos Luiz Otavio Pereira dos , Ribeiro Alexandro Alves , Sales Fabrícia Martins , Alencar Icaro Ferracini
Published: September 2022

Objetivo: apresentar o estado da arte das publicações expressas na literatura cientifica mundial sobre a temática, bem como identificar os benefícios terapêuticos da Cannabis medicinal no tratamento dos sintomas das doenças neurodegenerativas especificamente doenças de Parkinson, esclerose múltipla e Alzheimer. Método: trata-se de uma revisão integrativa da literatura, cuja busca de dados foi realizada nas bibliotecas virtuais. Web of Science, Scopus, Medline, Lilacs, Cochrane Library e Scielo no período de agosto a outubro de 2021. Resultados: foram encontrados 158 artigos. Vinte e tres artigos foram selecionados para serem lidos na íntegra e 8 atenderam aos critérios desta revisão. Conclusão: as evidências mostram que embora cada vez mais prescritos ou autorizados, a cannabis medicinal ou os Canabinóides para a doenças neurodegenerativas continuam a ser controversos para muitos médicos.
Signs and symptoms of stress in nursing professionals who worked in the fight against covid-19 / Sinais e sintomas do estresse em profissionais da enfermagem que atuaram no combate a covid-19
Authors: Nascimento Jerliane Freitas do , Santos Alexandy Michel Dantas , Alves Kisna Yasmin Andrade , Oliveira Lannuzya Veríssimo e , Rodrigues Claudia Cristiane Filgueira Martins
Published: September 2022

Objetivo: identificar os sinais e sintomas do estresse prevalentes em profissionais da enfermagem que atuaram no combate a COVID-19. Método: estudo quantitativo transversal, realizado em um hospital universitário do nordeste do Brasil, durante o primeiro semestre de 2021. Resultados: 47% dos profissionais apresentaram estresse ocupacional. E, dentre os sintomas prevalentes em profissionais da enfermagem observou-se que entre os físicos, os que mais se acentuaram foram 43 (10,1%) tensão muscular, 37 (8,7%) sensação de desgaste físico, 33 (7,7%) problemas com a memória, 27 (6,3%) cansaço constante e insônia 27 (6,3%) e os psicológicos se destacaram 28 (11,3%) cansaço excessivo, 20 (8,1%) angústia ou ansiedade diária, 20 (8,1%) sensibilidade emotiva excessiva e Irritabilidade sem causa aparente 17 (6,9%). Conclusão: evidenciou-se que o estresse esteve presente nos profissionais da enfermagem, grande quantidade inseridos na fase de resistência e em seguida de exaustão, consequentemente o surgimento de diversos sintomas de caráter físicos e psicológicos.
Community‐Based Participatory Research
Authors: Oetzel John
Published: September 2022

Community engagement and community engagement in research are increasingly popular approaches to working with Indigenous communities, vulnerable communities, and communities of color to address health equity. The most popular approach to community engagement is community‐based participatory research (CBPR). CBPR is a collaborative and equitable process of involving all research partners in all phases of a research project, building off the strength of all the research partners. CBPR is guided by a set of principles including action orientation for community benefit, long‐term partnership focused on sustainable gains on health issues of importance to the community, and capacity building of all partners. Recent theoretical developments in CBPR have identified key mechanisms of why CBPR creates positive outcomes and includes trust, partnership synergy, and commitment to collective empowerment. These elements are integrated into the CBPR conceptual model, which identifies pathways from context to partnership dynamics/communication, intervention, and outcomes and provides promising practices for CBPR partnerships to enhance health and health equity. CBPR is being used with increasing frequency by health communication scholars, although there is room for greater use.
Computational Health Communication
Authors: Yang Qinghua , Rains Stephen A.
Published: September 2022

This entry provides an introduction to computational health communication as an emerging field. We explain five major applications of computational health communication involving opinion mining, predicting group membership, identifying patterns in texts, determining connections between entities, and performing simulations. We also discuss some of the tools employed in these applications, including dictionary‐based text classification, supervised and unsupervised machine learning approaches, social network analysis, and agent‐based modeling. We conclude by pointing out several challenges and pitfalls in computational health communication, and providing suggestions for further research.
Intervention Research
Authors: Bates Benjamin R.
Published: September 2022

This entry reviews major concepts in intervention research. It begins by defining intervention research and then distinguishes intervention research from other forms of research. Following these definitions, the entry offers three major kinds of intervention research: individual‐level intervention research, top‐down community‐level intervention research, and bottom‐up community‐level intervention research. It provides traditions, assumptions of those traditions, and examples of those traditions within each type of intervention research.
Performance
Authors: Noe Jessica L. , Jackson Taylor L. , Broderick Michael L.
Published: September 2022

Performance studies has grown in popularity as a theoretical and methodological tool for informing health communication inquiries and projects. Performance looks to the nuanced, messy, everyday‐ness of itself, privileging the body as a key site of inquiry or subjugated knowledge. Sharing entanglements with intersectional feminism, advocacy, and social justice, performance necessitates complexity and cultural contextuality. Given that qualitative approaches in health communication have sought to expand the discipline and what constitutes “health,” performance studies continues not only to push what counts as methodology and forms of representation, but also to stretch the definitional boundaries of “health.” The performative body is necessarily always a political one, concerned with that which is both personal and socially shared. Performance provides not only a theoretical lens for making sense of community actions, priorities, and methods of engagement, but also offers methods for engagement through creative outlets like theater activism, song and dance, protest, play, and performative writing. From the use of performative storytelling as a method of treatment and recovery from post‐traumatic stress disorder, to the engagement with community theater in working toward public health initiatives, performance paradigms have been successfully utilized to inform many scholarly health communication endeavors.
Critical Approaches
Authors: Mukherjee Parameswari , Basu Ambar
Published: September 2022

This entry provides an overview of critical approaches to health communication including its origin, theoretical underpinnings, and an understanding of what makes critical work salient. Primarily concerned with uneven textures of power and its influences on the cultural constructions of health meanings and illness, critical theorists are invested in the political and ethical goal of promoting transformative social justice by unmasking the larger structural forces that lead to marginalization. Critical approaches to health communication not only offer new insights into conceptualizing communicative phenomena around human health and illness but also have the potential to bridge the growing gap between the health rich and health poor in contemporary society.
Clinical Conversations with Older Patients
Authors: Greene Michele G. , Adelman Ronald D.
Published: September 2022

As the older population continues to grow across the United States and the world, it is essential to understand the critical role that communication between physicians and older patients plays in patient health and healthcare. In this entry we examine the literature that provides insight into the processes and content of communication in clinical medical encounters between physicians and older patients. We start with a discussion of the structural and individual aspects of ageism, namely, negative stereotypes about older individuals. We further examine some similarities and differences in communication between physicians and older and younger patients. Older patients are more likely to have multiple chronic conditions, problems with vision and hearing, cognitive issues, and polypharmacy, and to be accompanied to the medical visit than younger patients. These factors all impact clinical conversations. The difficult‐to‐talk‐about issues, like end‐of‐life concerns, the onset of dementia, and caregiving problems are briefly presented. Like patients of all ages, older individuals desire compassionate and effective treatment and care by their physicians.
Communication Skills Training Programs with Practicing Clinicians
Authors: Banerjee Smita C.
Published: September 2022

Communication skills training (CST) programs for clinicians are heralded as the gold‐standard method of improving clinician–patient communication. This entry describes CST programs for clinicians, beginning with a brief review of available literature on the content and format of CST programs (type, mode, duration), evidence of CST effectiveness, and implications, and describing one case example of a CST program developed for use in an oncology setting at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). The case study describes MSKCC's in‐house‐developed CST program, with a focus on content areas, format, and measurement and effectiveness. Overall, the existing data point toward success of CST programs for clinician‐level outcomes, and the growing need to focus on patient‐reported outcomes. A summary of the entry along with recommendations for future research are provided at the end.
Cost‐Of‐Care Conversations
Authors: Harrington Nancy Grant , Scott Allison M.
Published: September 2022

Rising healthcare costs have been a serious concern for decades. One approach to addressing high cost is for patients and clinicians to have cost‐of‐care conversations. This entry provides a description of the empirical cost conversations literature. It addresses definitions and frequency of cost conversations, barriers and facilitators of cost conversations, methodological characteristics of cost conversations studies, and patient adherence concerns. In addition, it presents a communication theory‐driven approach to studying cost conversations and offers conclusions about the status of the cost conversations literature and directions for future research.
Giving Bad News
Authors: Zhong Lingzi
Published: September 2022

Giving bad news is one of the most important yet stressful moments clinicians can experience. Although practical recommendations on how to give bad news are abundant, systematic and evidence‐based research is still lacking on what an effective episode of giving bad news entails and what the outcomes of specific strategies of giving bad news are. This entry first summarizes major communication guidelines on giving bad news and their limitations. Next, this entry presents recent works focusing on conceptualizing giving bad news as a communication process. Last, this entry discusses potential directions of future research on giving bad news.
Nursing Communication in Healthcare
Authors: Clayton Margaret F. , Scherr Courtney L.
Published: September 2022

Nursing is a licensed profession with an overall approach to improving health at the personal, family, community, and population level. Nurses use patient‐centered communication skills to build relationships, elicit patient and family values and goals of care, physically and emotionally support patients and families, and plan effective appropriate care that aligns with family and patient preferences. Nursing education comprises multiple levels of practice, licenses, certification, and scholarship; accredited programs require communication skill training. In addition many nursing specialty organizations such as the End‐of‐Life Nursing Education Consortium have developed communication skills programs focusing on communication skills tailored to specialty areas of nursing practice. Scientific collaboration of nursing and health communication scholars is ideal because of shared research interests, similar theoretical foci, and a joint desire to facilitate optimal patient care and outcomes. Collaboration enhances the richness of inquiry about how to best meet healthcare needs. Scholars who are considered boundary spanners, representing dual citizenship across clinical and health communication disciplines, have great potential to advance communication in healthcare. Working together, nurses and health communication scholars have an opportunity to investigate, facilitate, and enhance communication during healthcare. Together we can further understanding of factors that impact patient care and outcomes as well as enhance the translation of findings into practice.
Patient Education
Authors: Powell Tamara J. , Powell Aaron J.
Published: September 2022

This entry provides an overview of the history, purpose, attributes, stages, and media involved in patient education, and concludes by discussing two different perspectives on the function of this communicative event.
Relationship‐Centered Care
Authors: Haverfield Marie C.
Published: September 2022

Relationship‐centered care is a conceptual framework that places value on humanism in the clinical encounter and treats conversational exchange as the irreducible unit of analysis. Bridging features of interpersonal relationships with patient–clinician interactions, the framework positions the relationship between patient and clinician as central to healthcare delivery. Relationship‐centered care consists of four value‐laden principles that act as a guide for the development and maintenance of relationships between clinicians and patients. Other relationships pertinent to patient care beyond the patient and clinician are also recognized, including interprofessional relationships, community partnerships, and the relationship a clinician has with themself. The principles of relationship‐centered care are practiced through interpersonal communication with the potential to improve patient health and well‐being, clinician experience, and healthcare system costs. Various adaptations of the framework point to its utility as well as opportunities for further operationalization and application.
Open Science Practices
Authors: Cooks Eric J.
Published: September 2022

A defining function of science is the reduction of uncertainty through systematic observation. Issues related to transparency and reproducibility, influenced by researcher decisions, can hamper this effort. Over the past several decades through practices such as data sharing and preregistration, a movement toward a more ``open'' science has taken root among many health communication scholars. By understanding the motivations behind this push for openness and how to apply its principles, the validity of health communication research can be upheld and strengthened.
Public Relations
Authors: McKeever Brooke W.
Published: September 2022

This entry provides an overview of public relations and addresses how public relations relates to health communication. The field is first defined and then compared to related fields such as advertising and marketing. Public relations is often practiced in health organizations that are part of the government, nonprofit or nongovernmental organization (NGO) sectors; however, corporations are also involved in health communication. Public relations may go by other names, such as public affairs or public information, and it involves skills like writing, research, media relations, campaign planning, and management. Two public relations process models are discussed (RACES and ROPES), and examples of research on the overlap between public relations and health communication are provided. Finally, this entry touches on educational opportunities for those interested in learning more about or working in public relations, particularly as it relates to health communication.
Toxicity
Authors: Baglia Jay
Published: September 2022

This entry begins by describing the etymology of the word “toxic,” its use in antiquity, the ways medical practitioners, philosophers, and naturalists – such as Hippocrates, Aristotle, Dioscorides, and Galen – recognized and chronicled the dangers of toxic plants, animals, and minerals as well as their antidotes and potential benefits in healing and alleviating suffering. This is followed by medieval and Renaissance approaches to toxicity. Most notably, Paracelsus – considered today the Father of Toxicology – and his dose concept brought the recognition of chemical compounds and threshold effects to sixteenth‐century Europe. The era now known as the Anthropocene brings with it human‐produced toxic properties, replacing natural toxins as the central focus of scientific inquiry and concern. Rachel Carson's
Silent Spring
drew widespread public attention to the risks of toxic chemicals on the human body. Its publication resulted in community responses, mobilization, and activism and was marked by the differences in lay and “expert” definitions of risk. The final section of this entry invites health communication researchers to consider the contemporary problem of toxicity as an important focus of environmental health scholarship.
Social Networks
Authors: Friemel Thomas N.
Published: September 2022

A social network perspective on health communication emphasizes the relational characteristic of health communication and health behavior. The relevancy of this relational perspective is most evident regarding communicable diseases such as infections. However, empirical evidence shows that the same social structures and dynamics are of relevance for physical activity, substance use, mental well‐being, and most other health‐related issues. Even though these behaviors are not contagious in a biological sense, they are transmitted by the means of various forms of communication. Social networks are defined as a set of nodes and their relations (ties). With respect to health communication, the most important social networks encompass people and their communicative actions. But also healthcare organisations and their information exchange can be studied as a social network. Hence, social networks are by no means limited to online networks. Among the most important insight of network analytical studies is the distinction of social selection and influence processes. An increasing body of literature suggests that the selection of similar others may have a stronger effect on the network structure than social influence processes. This means that the similarity of health behavior within a social group (for example, social norms regarding substance use) is caused by the creation of friendship ties among like‐minded persons and is less the result of a diffusion process by opinion leaders and peer influence. Such insights not only help to understand the relational nature of health behavior but are crucial to inform (communicative) intervention strategies.
Social Networks and Support Health Outcomes
Authors: Meng Jingbo , Qin Jiaqi
Published: September 2022

Although social network was considered as interchangeable with social support from the social integration perspective, social network and social support are two distinct constructs from the psychological and supportive communication perspectives. Social networks create a relational environment and serve as generating mechanisms for the emergence of social support, including perceptions about the availability of support when it is needed, perceptions about how much support has been received, and the types and quality of supportive messages communicated with others. Research studies have provided evidence about the associations between structural network properties and support outcomes, and indicated which patterns of social relationships and which positions in a social network facilitate or hinder the formation of perceived social support and communication of supportive messages. Recent works have also extended the testing of theoretical frameworks that argue social support as a process through which social network structures influence physical and mental health outcomes among people. Future research should further integrate the supportive communication perspective into the examination of social network and support health outcomes.
Social Support
Authors: Faw Meara H. , Matter Michelle M.
Published: September 2022

Social support is an important health‐related and communicative process, including verbal and nonverbal behaviors intended to assist another person perceived as needing aid. The five types of social support can be divided into two categories: nurturant support (containing emotional, network, and esteem support) and action‐facilitating support (containing informational and tangible support). Each type of support is more or less effective in different situations, so providing optimal support requires paying attention to the situation and the specific needs of the support recipient, requiring support providers to offer one or more specific kinds of support depending on the situation. Social support is connected to various health outcomes, including stress, mental health, and physical health. Support can directly impact stress reactions and overall health, but it can also indirectly protect individuals from stress by buffering against its negative effects. Similarly, social support can impact a person's psychological and physical well‐being in generally positive ways while also helping them more effectively cope with negative events and engage in beneficial health‐related behaviors. Overall, social support has various beneficial outcomes on an individual's health, but the type of support and the way the support is communicated greatly impact those outcomes.
Content Analysis
Authors: Alpert Jordan M.
Published: September 2022

Content analysis is a research method consisting of counting, categorizing, and making inferences about data extracted from a variety of sources. Health communication researchers have used content analysis to evaluate health education materials, depictions of health in the mass media, and conversations about health occurring online. After data are extracted, the unit of analysis is determined, which can be a letter, word, sentence, multiple sentences, paragraphs, images, social media posts, or videos. A codebook is constructed with the operational definition for each unit of analysis, and coders are trained to ensure trustworthiness of the data. To verify that coders are coding accurately, inter‐rater reliability is performed, in which the percent agreement is calculated. Once a high agreement level is achieved, independent coding takes place. Analysis of codes typically consists of frequencies, as well as bivariate analysis to test relationships among variables, Chi‐square tests for associations, and multiple regression analysis. Advances in content analysis include computer‐aided content analysis, in which words or phrases are automatically calculated based on predefined codes or dictionaries. Artificial intelligence is also being used by first coding manually to train computers to develop algorithms to search for certain sequences of words, phrases, and meanings.
Experimental Research/Randomized Control Trials: Clinical
Authors: Folkvord Frans , Lupiáñez‐Villanueva Francisco , Febrer Nuria , Gunderson Laura
Published: September 2022

The influence of health communication has increased rapidly during the last decades. Therefore, it is essential to provide evidence‐based recommendations to relevant stakeholders (e.g., health professionals, politicians, researchers) on how to use health communication effectively in order to improve individuals' health. Experiments, particularly randomized controlled trials, have the potential to detect and test causal relationships between concepts. First, we discuss what defines an experiment, types of experimental designs, and the procedures that need to be followed in order to have a reliable and valid experimental design. Subsequently, we will discuss the disadvantages of experiments and how these can be mitigated. Finally, we elaborate on the usefulness of conducting experimental designs for scientific research in health communication.
Neuroimaging
Authors: Wang Xinyi , Scholz Christin , Falk Emily B. , Lydon‐Staley David M.
Published: September 2022

Health communication is a complex, multidetermined process, a full understanding of which necessitates a consideration of biological, psychological, and sociocultural phenomena. Communication neuroscience is a burgeoning subfield that complements a long history of biological approaches to communication. By considering the neural processes relevant to communication, communication neuroscience emphasizes that communication is an embodied process, occurring in, through, and to bodies. Neuroimaging approaches provide insight into the neural correlates of health communication processes, allow the testing of competing theories and the generation of new hypotheses, and provide tools to predict the success of health communication efforts designed to change behavior.
Phenomenology
Authors: Russell Laura , Field‐Springer Kimberly
Published: September 2022

Phenomenology, a philosophical tradition, takes interest in human experiences, particularly regarding how the a priori intricacies of lived moments are rendered through conscious perception, reflection, and interpretation. This entry explores historical groundings of this tradition and threads them through present‐day health communication scholarship. To this end, phenomenology offers a robust perspective for inquiring into the embodied essence of and articulated meanings for health experiences.
Stakeholder Engagement
Authors: Tan Naomi Qiu Pin , Kaur‐Gill Satveer
Published: September 2022

Stakeholder engagement is a central process to creating sustainable and successful community‐engaged health interventions. Strategies for recognizing, determining, selecting, and cultivating valuable stakeholder relationships when building community‐engaged health outcomes are discussed. Studies report that successful stakeholder engagement can prove effective in community‐engaged health promotion. This entry provides an overview of stakeholder relationships for community‐engaged health interventions. A breakdown of various stakeholders in the health communication literature is highlighted in this entry, including the community, organizations, government, and policymakers.
Thematic Analysis
Authors: Mason Nia F. , Francis Diane B.
Published: September 2022

Thematic analysis is a type of qualitative analysis that is considered appropriate for any study that seeks to understand the potential of an issue more widely using interpretations of data. When a researcher uses thematic analysis to code and analyze qualitative data systematically, it can then be linked to broader theoretical or conceptual issues. The popularity and application of thematic analysis increased after Braun and Clarke developed a guide on how to complete thematic analysis in a way that is theoretically and methodologically sound. Their recursive six‐phase approach highlights its usefulness in providing a method for systematically identifying, organizing, and offering insight into patterns of meaning, or themes, across a data set. Thematic analysis has been used in almost every conceivable field of scholarship in the social and health sciences and is applicable to any subdiscipline and area where a qualitative research approach is used to seek a greater understanding of human experiences, human behavior, human practices, and social processes.
Digital Stress
Authors: Freytag Anna , Hefner Dorothée
Published: September 2022

With the ever‐increasing prevalence of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and their penetration into the professional and private contexts of people of all ages, negative effects of digital communication and permanent connectedness are also coming to the fore, and digital stress is becoming an increasingly important issue in health communication practice and research. We define digital stress as stress elicited by the confrontation or interaction with, use of, or cognitive orientation toward digital ICTs. Resulting from an imbalance between situational demands and available coping resources, digital stress can be triggered by specific digital media use behaviors, cognitive orientations toward them (e.g., online vigilance), and socioemotional challenges (e.g., fear of missing out). Well‐researched digital stressors are, for instance, multitasking and communication overload. Digital stress manifests itself in physiological, affective, or behavioral responses and not only has a negative effect on people's well‐being but also carries the risk for a multitude of further severe negative health outcomes.
Games/Gaming for Health
Authors: DeSmet Ann , Vandebosch Heidi , Schwarz Ayla
Published: September 2022

Serious digital games use the game's entertaining characteristics for a “serious” health learning, treatment, or behavior change purpose. Serious digital games have been used and shown to be effective in a variety of health settings (i.e., medical training, rehabilitation, mental health treatment, prevention and health promotion). Effects are, however, not always observed for all outcomes and behavioral changes may be short‐lived. More experimental research is needed on what drives effectiveness. Current insights show that theoretical foundations and individual tailoring are important for serious digital health games' effects. The intrinsically motivating, fun aspect of games is expected to rub off on the health context itself and intensify the engagement with health interventions. Different aspects of the game can increase user engagement, including aesthetics, mechanics, and dynamics. Care needs to be taken when designing serious digital games for health to avoid potential negative effects, for example on aggression, addiction, and sleep. Some considerations in perceived realism and metaphorical representations may also be needed to ensure transfer effects to real‐life situations are achieved. Although the field of serious digital health games has vastly expanded in recent years and its potential has been amply demonstrated, some challenges remain. These include a need for more sufficiently powered experimental studies into moderators of effects, and using options that can reduce cost and development time, that is, integrating open‐source and commercial off‐the‐shelf tools.
Geographic Information Systems Technology
Authors: Chan Hang‐Yee
Published: September 2022

Geographic information systems (GIS) refer to a set of technologies that collect, organize, analyze, and visualize spatial data. Sources of GIS data include public records, informants, and volunteered geographic information. In analyzing spatial data, special care has to be taken in order to account for spatial dependencies between observations and potential local variations in statistical relationships. This leads to the deployment of specialized statistical methods that are “geographically aware.” Communicating findings based on GIS analysis – either to peer scientists, policymakers, or the public – often requires visualizing statistical relationships in a geographic manner, although there needs to be careful consideration about possible sources of geographic and demographic distortions. With the falling cost of high‐performance computing and the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, it has never been easier to extract meaningful knowledge from spatial big data; however, privacy issues remain a concern when handling potentially sensitive personal information.
Health Informatics
Authors: Medlock Stephanie , Groos Sara S. , de Wildt Kelly K. , Westerbeek Leonie
Published: September 2022

Health informatics (also referred to as medical informatics or biomedical informatics) is an interdisciplinary field that deals with health‐related data in healthcare and with the technologies that are used to support healthcare services. While the goal of some health informatics systems is to automate processes, the more common goal is to help clinicians, patients, policymakers, and others to manage health information, and to communicate that information efficiently and effectively to end users. Thus, there is considerable overlap between the fields of health informatics and health communication, and this intriguing intersection between the two fields opens many opportunities for innovation. Health communication is often visible in health informatics in the area of patient communication. Examples of this include patient self‐management tools that support behavior change. Correspondingly, health informatics is often visible in health communication in the use of computational methods and “big data” to build on communication theory. Future research in health communication will likely involve more and more intensive use of information technology. This can bring exciting new possibilities for both interventions and analytical techniques, yet researchers should ensure that information technology interventions respect participants' privacy and guarantee their safety. Investigating the effect of information technology on communications between healthcare professionals and with patients also offers interesting opportunities for collaborative research.
Online Medical Consultation Services
Authors: Kessler Sabrina H.
Published: September 2022

Online medical consultation services (also called “e‐consultation” or “e‐visit” services) are Internet‐based remote patient–doctor (consumer–provider) services from different hospitals and medical institutes; these are a part of telemedicine (telehealth or e‐health) usually for the purpose of diagnosis or treatment. Research has identified various reasons for and purposes of the use of the patient‐centered services and, in particular, examined patient inquiries in relation to diseases mentioned in the requests, health narratives and included emotions, and the new doctor–patient relationship. Online medical consultation services can strengthen patient empowerment and health literacy through the individual provision of health information and greatly impact the use of health systems, patient–doctor roles and relations, and individuals' health. They are increasing in popularity, especially in the time of the COVID‐19 pandemic.
Entertainment‐Education (Effects)
Authors: Riley Amy Henderson , Sood Suruchi , Wang Hua
Published: September 2022

Entertainment‐education (EE) was first defined as a health communication strategy that used media designed to increase individual knowledge, change attitudes, and shift behavior. Early EE programs focused on family planning and other health issues and utilized a long‐running narrative format on radio and television. Early EE effects research focused on individual‐level data and outcomes, such as knowledge and behavior, to understand if EE worked. Over time, the definition of EE has evolved to reflect a changing global media landscape and new and emerging health priorities. Additionally, EE effects research has progressed to align with contemporary theories of individual and social change and more advanced social science research methodologies. The social ecological model (SEM) posits that multifaceted personal and environmental factors interact to influence an individual's behavior. EE effects research now considers factors across levels of the SEM, including individual‐level, interpersonal‐level, and community‐level outcomes. Four exemplary EE programs illustrate effects across the SEM: (i)
Twende na Wakati
(
Let's Go with the Times
; a radio program focused on HIV/AIDS from Tanzania; (ii)
Kyunki … Jeena Issi Ka Naam Hai
(
Because … That's What Life Is
; a television program focused on maternal and child health from India); (iii)
Soul City
(a multimedia program focused on gender‐based violence and HIV/AIDS in South Africa); and (iv)
East Los High
(a transmedia program focused on teen pregnancy and other topics in the United States). Future EE research will require creative research design and advanced tools for measuring effects across multiple levels of the SEM, across different media platforms, using state‐of‐the‐art tools and mixed methods, for emerging and urgent health crises, and to demonstrate change over time.
Entertainment‐Education (Overall)
Authors: Murphy Sheila T. , Phelps Ashley
Published: September 2022

Entertainment‐education (EE) is not a theory but a communication strategy that involves the intentional placement of educational content in entertainment in order to change knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. It has been successfully implemented for a variety of health‐related issues in countries around the world for over 70 years. EE programs vary widely in terms of the extent to which they use formative research to test their message with the target audience and integrate communication theories in their message design. Successful programs generally do both and construct their stories based on the theory of the tone, social cognitive theory, and the theory of normative social behavior. Stories that transport the audience and facilitate identification with characters have been empirically shown to impact knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. For example, Murphy and colleagues conducted a large‐scale randomized clinical trial (RCT) that demonstrated that a narrative format of communicating information (compared to a non‐narrative format with identical health information) produced a stronger and more sustained impact on cervical cancer‐related knowledge, attitudes, and prevention behavior. The strongest impact was among women who both identified with the Latinx characters of
Tamale Lesson
and reported being transported into the story. Stories or narratives may be uniquely qualified to overcome persuasive resistance to health messages. By including a desired behavior in an entertaining program, EE can impact how common or normative the desired behavior is perceived to be and encourage others to mimic the behavior.
Media, Quality of Health Information
Authors: Diviani Nicola , Rubinelli Sara , Fiordelli Maddalena
Published: September 2022

Although health‐related information has always been present on the media, quality of health information is a relatively recent topic in health communication research. The interest in the issue has been stimulated by concerns regarding the uncontrolled nature of the information available online and its possible consequences for consumers. There are three main streams of research in the field. First, work aimed at defining health information quality, resulting in the identification of its numerous dimensions or attributes, which are related to the information itself, to the context, and to the users. Second, research aimed at developing assessment tools and guidelines, which has allowed the assessment of the actual quality of information available, showing that it is suboptimal. Third, work aimed at understanding the consumers' perception of health information quality and their ability to evaluate it. This last research line highlighted a need for more awareness on the issue among consumers of health information, a challenge that has now been taken up by health literacy research. Main limitations of research in the field include the lack of clear data on the actual impact of bad quality information on health outcomes and the lack of effective interventions to support users in their evaluation of health information quality. Following the declaration of an infodemic related to the COVID‐19 pandemic, health information quality is now a hot topic in health communication as well as for the whole society. Hopefully this will contribute to significantly move forward the research agenda on the topic and overcome its current limitations.
Health Journalism
Authors: Amend Elyse
Published: September 2022

News media are the general public's main source for health and medical information. Journalists who cover health topics are tasked not only with “translating” the complexities of science and medicine for their audiences, but with raising people's health literacy levels and providing citizens with the information they need to make informed decisions about personal health issues. Health journalists share a number of common norms and practices inherent to the journalistic profession more generally, including a commitment to truth, accuracy, fairness, balance, and independence, and a perceived role as “watchdogs” who serve citizens by holding those in power to account. Despite its important role, health journalism is in trouble. In line with larger trends affecting the news media industry, there are fewer specialized health journalists working in newsrooms today. Journalists have less time and fewer resources to do more work, and are increasingly competing for audiences online, where social media and bloggers have become popular sources for health information and mis/disinformation. Health journalism has also been the target of much scholarly critique, including charges of uncritical reporting, fixating on overhyped “breakthroughs,” not representing the realities of medical research, and fostering high levels of audience distrust in both journalism and the medical field. Despite these challenges and critiques, the COVID‐19 pandemic has caused many to recognize the value and importance of health journalism, which creates opportunities to use the lessons learned from covering a global health crisis to improve the field's overall quality and conditions.
Communication Theory of Identity
Authors: Wehrman Erin C. , Abendschein Bryan
Published: September 2022

The communication theory of identity (CTI) explains that identity is multilayered and situated in communication. According to the theory, identity includes four different frames: personal (i.e., how people see themselves), enacted (i.e., how identity is expressed in interactions), relational (i.e., relational roles), and communal (i.e., group memberships). Layers can overlap and also contradict, creating identity gaps. CTI has important implications for health communication related to how health professionals can help to manage and support the identities of patients, colleagues, and informal caregivers. CTI may also provide more nuance for helping to understand why people pursue health behaviors that reinforce or contradict their identities.
Construal Level Theory
Authors: Katz Sherri Jean
Published: September 2022

Construal level theory holds that we think about close items concretely and far items abstractly. At a low construal level or close psychological distance, thoughts are generated about means‐oriented factors and feasibility concerns, while at a high construal level or far psychological distance, thoughts are generated about goals and desirability concerns. In addition to defining key concepts, including psychological distance, construal level, congruence, and abstraction and distance message cues, this work highlights the way health communication scholars have been contributing to construal level theory and offers recommendations for future directions.