Peter J. Schulz - Böcker

This Element considers health misinformation and the problems it presents. The evolving communication context-changing doctor-patient relationships and developments in information technology-presents patients with a vastly enriched information landscape and new challenges to patients navigating it. These challenges are magnified as growing patient empowerment and autonomy have increased expectations for patient involvement in medical decisions. In this context, the ways people approach presented information, learn from it, understand it, and use it, exacerbate the risk that they become misinformed-believing things that are inimical to improved health. Moreover, these same processes make it difficult to correct such beliefs. Approaches building on trust between patient and professional exemplify improved communication to increase accurate patient knowledge and understanding in the service of better health. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

This Element considers health misinformation and the problems it presents. The evolving communication context-changing doctor-patient relationships and developments in information technology-presents patients with a vastly enriched information landscape and new challenges to patients navigating it. These challenges are magnified as growing patient empowerment and autonomy have increased expectations for patient involvement in medical decisions. In this context, the ways people approach presented information, learn from it, understand it, and use it, exacerbate the risk that they become misinformed-believing things that are inimical to improved health. Moreover, these same processes make it difficult to correct such beliefs. Approaches building on trust between patient and professional exemplify improved communication to increase accurate patient knowledge and understanding in the service of better health. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Assembles the most important theories in the field of health communication in one comprehensive volume, designed for students and practitioners alikeHealth Communication Theory is the first book to bring together the theoretical frameworks used in the study and practice of creating, sending, and receiving messages relating to health processes and health care delivery. This timely volume provides easy access to the key theoretical foundations on which health communication theory and practice are based. Students and future practitioners are taught how to design theoretically-grounded research, interventions, and campaigns, while established scholars are presented with new and developing theoretical frameworks to apply to their work.Divided into three parts, the volume first provides a summary and history of the field, followed by an overview of the essential theories and concepts of health communication, such as Problematic Integration Theory and the Cultural Variance Model. Part Two focuses on interpersonal communication and family interaction theories, provider-patient interaction frameworks, and public relations and organizational theories. The final part of the volume centers on theories relevant to information processing and cognition, affective impact, behavior, message effects, and socio-psychology and sociology. Edited by two internationally-recognized experts with extensive editorial and scholarly experience, this first-of-its-kind volume: Provides original chapters written by a group of global scholars working in health communication theoryCovers theories unique to interpersonal and organizational contexts, and to health campaigns and media issuesEmphasizes the interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of health communication researchIncludes overviews of basic health communication theory and applicationFeatures commentary on future directions in health communication theoryHealth Communication Theory is an indispensable resource for advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying health communication, and for both new and established scholars looking to familiarize themselves with the area of study or seeking a new theoretical frameworks for their research and practice.

This unique volume offers an overview of the diversity in research on communication, including perspectives from biology, sociality, economics, norms and human development. It includes general social science and humanities approaches to communication, from systems theory to cultural theory, as well as perspectives more specifically related to communication acts, such as linguistics and cognition. The volume also features chapters on the participants and various elements in communication processes, on possible effects and on wider consequences of mediation (with technical media). The scope of the contributions is global, and the volume is relevant to both the empirical and the philosophical traditions in human sciences. Designed as a stand-alone collection to engage undergraduates as well as postgraduates and academics, this is also the first book in, and an introduction to, the De Gruyter Mouton multi-volume Handbooks of Communication Science.