September issue of Health Communication Science Digest is now available!

September issue of Health Communication Science Digest is now available!

September issue of Health Communication Science Digest is now available!

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) sent this bulletin at 10/04/2012 05:05 PM EDT

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The September issue of Health Communication Science Digest (HCSD or Digest) is now available at http://www.cdc.gov/healthcommunication/ScienceDigest/index.html

This month in the Digest:

• The effectiveness of health information media campaigns is highlighted in four studies. A report in the MMWR, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, illustrates the positive effect of a national tobacco education campaign. An award-winning media-based community engagement program is described by DeLuca et al. Garbers et al., reporting on a RCT, observe positive outcomes from a patient-centered computer-based contraceptive method choice intervention. And, Khan et al. find that communication campaigns can substaintially increase TB case notification in dense urban settings.
• Advanced approaches to audience segmentation in health communication endeavors was the focus of five studies. Blitstein et al. found substantial differences between father-child and mother-child communications about sex in response to public health messages. Campo et al., examining contraceptive use in young women, use the extended parallel process model to identify four distinct audience clusters to whom health messages should be tailored. Cano & Ortinau conclude that direct tailoring to individuals who are “strong Hispanic identifiers” is critical. Dominic findings suggest that targeting relational-oriented social media users could be an effective approach for seeding viral health campaigns. And, Edgar and Volkman highlight the importance of developing communication theories based health promotion campaigns.
• Aspects of health literacy are illustrated in four studies. Caiata-Zufferey & Schulz find that a physician’s appraisal of their patient’s health literacy is one factor influencing their communicative strategies with internet-informed patients. Garner et al. detail a three-element model for evaluating the effectiveness of patient information leaflets. Okan et al. demonstrate individual differences in graph literacy contribute to risk message comprehension accuracy. And, Paek and Hove find that adolescent ehealth literacy is independently linked with social cognitive factors and perceived social influences.
• Three studies examined new media. Brown et al. detail formative testing of a computer-based contraceptive planning intervention targeting adolescents. Kontos et al. report on internet-related communication inequalities in HPV vaccine awareness and infection knowledge. And, Whitford et al. evaluate SMS text messaging as a tool for collecting health campaign outcomes data.

Please remember that you can access all issues of the “Health Communication Science Digest” series online via the searchable Health Communication Science Digest Archive.

We hope that you find the Health Communication Science Digest useful and invite you to provide us with feedback for improvement. Please send us articles that you would like to share with others—articles you or your colleagues have published or found useful.

Please send your comments and questions to HCSD@cdc.gov.