Insights and Imperatives: Towards Culling Lessons from State-of-the-Art Health Communication Research

INTRODUCTION Welcome to this Special Issue of Communication Studies! The purposes of this introduction are five-fold: (1) provide a precis of Health Communication to better situate the current issue; (2) express my deep gratitude to CSCA's Health Comm Interest Group Leaders and members for enabling me to serve as Guest Editor; (3) acknowledge the expertise, diligence, and commitment of a remarkable Editorial Board, Editorial Assistants, and Website developer; (4) to profusely thank several individuals who contributed to the crafting of this Special Issue "behind the scenes" and (5) highlight the contributions of the featured articles. It is my ardent aspiration that this SI will become a "must read" and standard citation for present and prospective health communication scholars, practitioners, and students. And if this volume does ascend such lofty heights, then, all those involved, from editorial assistants to aspiring authors, should be greatly commended. BACKGROUND As Kreps and Query (1990) report, "Health communication emerged in the 1970s and 1980s as an active and exciting area of social scientific inquiry concerned with the central role of human interaction in the provision of health care and health promotion" (p. 293). It can influence, integrate, bridge, and be shaped by several disciplines such as medicine, nursing, health psychology, medical sociology and anthropology, health education and promotion, epidemiology, social work, dentistry, optometry, law, health services administration, occupational and physical therapy, as well as pharmacy. Notwithstanding its rich, interdisciplinary nature, health communication is distinct from the preceding areas in that it focuses on the role of message behavior-verbal and nonverbal-through a variety of channels and across multiple contexts. Representative foci initially included: doctor-patient interaction, patient compliance /satisfaction, social support, health care team interaction, health care organizational communication, and mass media health campaigns (see Kreps, 1988; Thompson, 1994, 1984; Pettegrew & Logan, 1987). While much of the early health communication research was atheoretical and unsophisticated (Pettegrew & Logan, 1987; Thompson, 1984), that is no longer the case today (Kreps, 2000; Thompson, 1994). Health communication scholars are conducting NIH, CDC, and/or NIOSH-funded projects focusing on public health campaigns in the areas of substance abuse (Burgoon et al., 2002), HIV/AIDS prevention (Glik, Nowak, Valente, Sapsis, & Martin, 2002), and skin cancer (Parrott, Monahan, Ainsworth, & Steiner, 1998). Health communication scholars are taking the lead in examining the role of computer-mediated social support (Braithwaite, Waldron, Finn, 1999), and the use of the Internet across a variety of health contexts (Rice & Katz, 2001). As Kreps, Query, and Bonaguro (in press) indicate, there are multiple signs that further reinforce the vitality of Health Communication inquiry. In 1989, Lawrence Erlbaum and Associates launched Health Communication with the Founding Editor being Teresa L. Thompson, Ph.D. In 1996, Taylor and Francis launched The Journal of Health Communication: International Perspectives, with the Founding Editor being Scott S. Ratzan, M. D. In 2003, this latter journal will disseminate six issues, an increase from the previous quarterly releases. Approximately three years ago, the National Cancer Institute established a Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch, with its Chief being a Communication scholar, Gary L. Kreps, Ph.D. Circa 1998, created by' Marifran Mattson, Ph.D., and underwritten by Purdue University, an award- winning, website centering on health communication research, pedagogy, and application goes online [http://www.sla.purdue.edu/healthcomm]. Beginning in 1991 through 1996, two special issues of the American Behavioral Scientist and one special issue of The Journal of Health Psychology were devoted to Health Communication (see Kreps, Bonaguro, & Query, 1998). …