Scholars@Duke
Brian Glen Southwell

Brian Glen Southwell

Adjunct Professor in the Department of Medicine
Medicine, General Internal Medicine

Selected Publications

Acknowledging Uncertainty and the Scientific Process Increases Perceived Trustworthiness and Understanding of Public Health Risk Communication.

Journal Article J Public Health Manag Pract · January 2026 OBJECTIVES: The aim is to determine if comprehensive messages about public health situations that acknowledge uncertainty and explain scientific processes increase perceived trustworthiness and scientific understanding relative to less enhanced messages fo ... Full text Link to item Cite

One voice and vision: How the RISE network built a collective identity as the foundation for strategic dissemination.

Journal Article Harm Reduct J · December 8, 2025 BACKGROUND: A collective identity is a set of shared values and value propositions that an investigator network projects as they deliver data and knowledge generated through their studies to community partners, policymakers, research participants, public h ... Full text Link to item Cite

Lessons from digital health research

Chapter · April 2, 2025 The rise of digital media has transformed how people access and share health information, offering both opportunities and challenges for mental health professionals. Research on digital health behaviors provides valuable insights for improving mental healt ... Full text Cite

Patient-Provider Communication and Colorectal Cancer Screening Completion Using Multi-target Stool DNA Testing.

Journal Article J Cancer Educ · February 2025 Colorectal cancer (CRC) screening continues to be underutilized in the USA despite the availability of multiple effective, guideline-recommended screening options. Provider recommendation has been consistently shown to improve screening completion. Underst ... Full text Link to item Cite

A model for supporting biomedical and public health researcher use of publicly available All of Us data at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Journal Article J Am Med Inform Assoc · December 1, 2024 PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to describe opportunities and challenges associated with the development and implementation of a program for supporting researchers underrepresented in biomedical research. APPROACH: We describe a case study of the All of ... Full text Link to item Cite

How health risk communication best practices can improve community flood risk communication

Journal Article Journal of Public Health and Emergency · September 25, 2024 Full text Cite

Provider communication contributes to colorectal cancer screening intention through improving screening outcome expectancies and perceived behavioral control.

Journal Article Soc Sci Med · January 2024 Colorectal cancer (CRC) screening continues to be underutilized in the US despite the availability of multiple effective, guideline-recommended screening options. Provider recommendation has been consistently shown to improve screening completion. Yet, ava ... Full text Link to item Cite

Teaching Medical Students to Communicate Risks Like Military Intelligence Analysts.

Journal Article J Med Educ Curric Dev · 2024 Communication about health often involves descriptions of risk: the probability or likelihood of an unfavorable outcome. Communicating risk helps individuals make choices about their own health by building understanding of potential outcomes and providing ... Full text Link to item Cite

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Journal Article · May 31, 2023 Full text Cite

Abstract 770: Provider communication contributes to colorectal cancer screening intention through improving screening outcome expectancies and perceived behavioral control

Journal Article Cancer Research · April 4, 2023 AbstractBackground: Multiple guideline-recommended colorectal cancer (CRC) screening options have been shown to reduce CRC incidence and mortality among average-risk patients. Yet, CRC screening continues to ... Full text Cite

Health Misinformation Exposure and Health Disparities: Observations and Opportunities.

Journal Article Annu Rev Public Health · April 3, 2023 The concepts of health misinformation and health disparities have been prominent in public health literature in recent years, in part because of the threat that each notion poses to public health. How exactly are misinformation proliferation and health dis ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Attitudes and Experiential Factors Associated with Completion of mt-sDNA Test Kit for Colorectal Cancer Screening.

Journal Article J Patient Exp · 2023 Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Despite the availability of multiple screening options, CRC screening is underutilized. We conducted a survey of patients (n = 2973) who were prescribed the m ... Full text Link to item Cite

Can Local TV News Affect Parents’ Perceptions of Parenting and Child Development Research? Evidence From the Positive Parenting Newsfeed Project

Journal Article Psychology Public Policy and Law · December 15, 2022 As the primary and most trusted source of news for most adults in the United States, local TV plays an important role in providing information to the public, offering an avenue to reach scientifically underserved communities and ultimately building value f ... Full text Cite

When medical practice meets medical myth: confronting misinformation in the clinical encounter

Chapter · October 15, 2022 "The book, written from the e-Health literacy perspective, is unique in its nuanced approach to misinformation. ... Cite

Defining and Measuring Scientific Misinformation

Journal Article Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science · March 1, 2022 We define scientific misinformation as publicly available information that is misleading or deceptive relative to the best available scientific evidence and that runs contrary to statements by actors or institutions who adhere to scientific principles. Sci ... Full text Open Access Cite

An Empirical Procedure to Evaluate Misinformation Rejection and Deception in Mediated Communication Contexts

Journal Article Communication Theory · February 1, 2022 Although misleading health information is not a new phenomenon, no standards exist to assess consumers' ability to detect and subsequently reject misinformation. Part of this deficit reflects theoretical and measurement challenges. After drawing novel conn ... Full text Open Access Cite

Provider response and follow-up to parental declination of HPV vaccination.

Journal Article Vaccine · January 21, 2022 OBJECTIVE: Parents often decline HPV vaccination, but little is known about how healthcare providers should promote vaccination at a later visit for secondary acceptance. We examined the associations of two factors, providers' response to declination durin ... Full text Link to item Cite

Alcohol and Cancer: Existing Knowledge and Evidence Gaps across the Cancer Continuum.

Journal Article Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev · January 2022 Alcoholic beverages are carcinogenic to humans. Globally, an estimated 4.1% of new cancer cases in 2020 were attributable to alcoholic beverages. However, the full cancer burden due to alcohol is uncertain because for many cancer (sub)types, associations r ... Full text Link to item Cite

The impact of interactive advertising on consumer engagement, recall, and understanding: A scoping systematic review for informing regulatory science.

Journal Article PLoS One · 2022 We conducted a scoping systematic review with respect to how consumer engagement with interactive advertising is evaluated and if interactive features influence consumer recall, awareness, or comprehension of product claims and risk disclosures for informi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Editors' Introduction

Journal Article Journal of Applied Research on Children · January 1, 2022 Full text Cite

Journal of Applied Research on Children: Informing Policy for Children at Risk

Journal Article Journal of Applied Research on Children · January 1, 2022 Full text Cite

Measuring Everyday Life: Talking About Research and Why It Matters

Book · December 21, 2021 Why do people act as they do? How can we improve our health and well-being? What can the past tell us about our future? Research can help us address such questions, but the journey to finding answers can be challenging and full of adventure. Curate ... Full text Cite

News coverage about aspirin as a countervailing force against low-dose aspirin campaign promotion.

Journal Article Translational behavioral medicine · October 2021 Organized health promotion efforts sometimes compete with news media, social media, and other sources when providing recommendations for healthy behavior. In recent years, patients have faced a complicated information environment regarding aspirin use as a ... Full text Open Access Cite

Dimensions of trust and information seeking on natural disasters, hazards, and extreme weather in North Carolina (USA)

Journal Article · June 18, 2021 <p>To understand where people turn for information regarding natural disasters, hazards, and extreme weather, we surveyed residents of Ashe, Watauga, and Rockingham counties in North Carolina (n = 79). Respondents ranged from 27 years ... Full text Open Access Cite

Development and validation of prescription drug risk, efficacy, and benefit perception measures in the context of direct-to-consumer prescription drug advertising.

Journal Article Res Social Adm Pharm · May 2021 PURPOSE: Understanding patient perceptions of prescription drug risks and benefits is an important component of determining risk-benefit tradeoffs and helping patients make informed medication decisions. However, few validated measures exist for capturing ... Full text Link to item Cite

Predictors of willingness to get a COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S.

Journal Article BMC Infect Dis · April 12, 2021 BACKGROUND: As COVID-19 vaccine distribution efforts continue, public health workers can strategize about vaccine promotion in an effort to increase willingness among those who may be hesitant. METHODS: In April 2020, we surveyed a national probability sam ... Full text Link to item Cite

2021 ABM Annual Meeting Abstracts Supplement

Journal Article Annals of Behavioral Medicine · April 12, 2021 Full text Cite

Experimental evidence of consumer and physician detection and rejection of misleading prescription drug website content.

Journal Article Res Social Adm Pharm · April 2021 BACKGROUND: Consumers and primary care physicians (PCPs) sometimes encounter deceptive promotional claims about prescription drugs. Whether consumers and PCPs can detect deceptive claims or whether those claims negatively affect medical decision making, ho ... Full text Link to item Cite

News coverage and online advertising effects on patient-led search for aspirin, heart health, and stroke information and educational tool use.

Journal Article Patient Educ Couns · March 2021 OBJECTIVE: Using indicators of campaign effort and relevant news stories, we sought to predict two patterns of patient behavior regarding information about aspirin and heart health: patient use of a campaign web tool to determine whether they should talk w ... Full text Link to item Cite

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Journal Article Rev Panam Salud Publica · 2021 Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

Multilevel communication to improve well-being during a pandemic.

Journal Article Implement Res Pract · 2021 UNLABELLED: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted existing crises and introduced new stressors for various populations. We suggest that a multilevel ecological perspective, one that researchers and practitioners have used to address some of public health's ... Full text Link to item Cite

A Pilot Study of Medical Misinformation Perceptions and Training Among Practitioners in North Carolina (USA).

Journal Article Inquiry · 2021 Medical misinformation (MM) is a problem for both medical practitioners and patients in the 21st century. Medical practitioners have anecdotally reported encounters with patient-held misinformation, but to date we lack evidence that quantifies this phenome ... Full text Link to item Cite

ADVANCING HEALTH COMMUNICATION RESEARCH: Issues and Controversies in Research Design and Data Analysis

Chapter · January 1, 2021 This chapter highlights issues and controversies in health communication research stemming from a view of health communication as comprising processes through which an individual or an audience engages, either directly or indirectly, information that can i ... Full text Cite

Mental Models of Infectious Diseases and Public Understanding of COVID-19 Prevention.

Journal Article Health Commun · December 2020 The emergence of viral diseases such as Ebola virus disease, Zika virus disease, and the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has posed considerable challenges to health care systems around the world. Public health strategy to address emerging infectious disease ... Full text Link to item Cite

Patients' understanding of oncology clinical endpoints: A literature review.

Journal Article Patient Educ Couns · September 2020 OBJECTIVES: Oncology clinical trials use a variety of clinical endpoints. Patients' understanding of the differences between clinical endpoints is important because misperceptions of treatment efficacy may affect treatment decisions. The objective of this ... Full text Link to item Cite

Identifying Needs for Advancing the Profession and Workforce in Environmental Health.

Journal Article Am J Public Health · March 2020 An ever-changing landscape for environmental health (EH) requires in-depth assessment and analysis of the current challenges and emerging issues faced by EH professionals. The Understanding the Needs, Challenges, Opportunities, Vision, and Emerging Roles i ... Full text Link to item Cite

Building and Maintaining Trust in Science: Paths Forward for Innovations by Nonprofits and Funding Organizations

Report · September 6, 2019 In July 2019, participants gathered in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, for an event organized by RTI International called Trust in Science. Our goal with the Trust in Science event was to foster collaborations and strengthen connections bet ... Full text Cite

Consumer Reactions to Price Comparison and Disclosure Information in Prescription Drug Print Advertising

Journal Article Journal of Consumer Affairs · September 1, 2019 Advertisers sometimes include price-comparison information in direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription drug ads because consumers may value such savings when considering drug options. It is not known whether a context statement—a disclosure noting that compar ... Full text Cite

Evaluating Correlates of Awareness of the Association between Drinking Too Much Alcohol and Cancer Risk in the United States.

Journal Article Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev · July 2019 BACKGROUND: Awareness that alcohol consumption is associated with cancer is low in the United States, and predictors of awareness are not well understood. METHODS: Data from the 2017 Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS 5 Cycle 1) were used to ... Full text Link to item Cite

State-Level Point-of-Sale Tobacco News Coverage and Policy Progression Over a 2-Year Period.

Journal Article Health Promot Pract · January 2019 BACKGROUND: Mass media content may play an important role in policy change. However, the empirical relationship between media advocacy efforts and tobacco control policy success has rarely been studied. We examined the extent to which newspaper content cha ... Full text Link to item Cite

Aging and Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Television Ads: The Effects of Individual Differences and Risk Presentation.

Journal Article J Health Commun · 2019 To determine how individual difference (age, cognition, and hearing) and risk presentation (audio frequency, speed, and organization) variables affect viewing of direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription drug television ads, participants (N = 1,075) from four ... Full text Link to item Cite

Taking Repeated Exposure into Account: An Experimental Study of Direct-To-Consumer Prescription Drug Television Ad Effects.

Journal Article J Health Commun · 2019 Introduction: Little is known about how repeated exposure to direct-to-consumer prescription drug promotion can impact consumers' retention and perceptions of drug information. The study described here tested the effects of varied ad exposure frequency on ... Full text Link to item Cite

Individual- and Ad-Level Predictors of Perceptions of Serious and Actionable Risks in Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug TV Advertising.

Journal Article J Health Commun · 2019 Prescription drug broadcast advertisements in the United States are required to present the product's major risks in at least the audio portion of the ad (21 CFR 202.1(e)(1)). This can result in a lengthy list of risks and side effects. The U.S. Food and D ... Full text Link to item Cite

Effects of E-cigarette Advertising Message Form and Cues on Cessation Intention: An Exploratory Study.

Journal Article J Health Commun · 2019 A common message in e-cigarette advertising is that e-cigarettes can be used anywhere. E-cigarette advertisements often express this message implicitly (e.g., "Whenever, wherever") alongside images of e-cigarettes that physically resemble combustible cigar ... Full text Link to item Cite

Factors That Mattered in Helping Travelers From Countries With Ebola Outbreaks Participate in Post-Arrival Monitoring During the 2014-2016 Ebola Epidemic.

Journal Article Inquiry · 2019 During the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed the CARE+ program to help travelers arriving to the United States from countries with Ebola outbreaks to meet US government requirements o ... Full text Link to item Cite

ALCOHOL AND CANCER: RISK, AWARENESS, AND COMMUNICATION NEEDS

Conference ANNALS OF BEHAVIORAL MEDICINE · 2019 Cite

Conversations about pictorial cigarette pack warnings: Theoretical mechanisms of influence.

Journal Article Soc Sci Med · December 2018 BACKGROUND: Social interactions are a key mechanism through which health communication campaigns influence behavior. Little research has examined how conversations about pictorial warnings motivate behavior. PURPOSE: We sought to establish whether and how ... Full text Link to item Cite

Use of online promotion to encourage patient awareness of aspirin use to prevent heart attack and stroke.

Journal Article J Epidemiol Community Health · November 2018 BACKGROUND: Literature on health promotion evaluation and public understanding of health suggests the importance of investigating behaviour over time in conjunction with information environment trends as a way of understanding programme impact. We analysed ... Full text Link to item Cite

Serious and actionable risks, plus disclosure: Investigating an alternative approach for presenting risk information in prescription drug television advertisements.

Journal Article Res Social Adm Pharm · October 2018 BACKGROUND: Broadcast direct-to-consumer (DTC) prescription drug ads that present product claims are required to also present the product's major risks. Debate exists regarding how much information should be included in these major risk statements. Some ar ... Full text Link to item Cite

Assessing hearing and cognition challenges in consumer processing of televised risk information: Validation of self-reported measures using performance indicators.

Journal Article Prev Med Rep · September 2018 Public health researchers face important challenges if they wish to include measures of hearing or cognitive ability in risk communication studies. We sought validity evidence for self-report measures of hearing and cognitive ability by comparing those mea ... Full text Link to item Cite

Frequency and Content of Conversations About Pictorial Warnings on Cigarette Packs.

Journal Article Nicotine Tob Res · June 7, 2018 INTRODUCTION: Social interactions are a key mechanism through which health communication efforts, including pictorial cigarette pack warnings, may exert their effects. We sought to better understand social interactions elicited by pictorial cigarette pack ... Full text Link to item Cite

A Mental Models Approach to Assessing Public Understanding of Zika Virus, Guatemala.

Journal Article Emerg Infect Dis · May 2018 Mental models are cognitive representations of phenomena that can constrain efforts to reduce infectious disease. In a study of Zika virus awareness in Guatemala, many participants referred to experiences with other mosquitoborne diseases during discussion ... Full text Link to item Cite

Misinformation and Mass Audiences

Book · January 24, 2018 Misinformation and Mass Audiences brings together evidence and ideas from communication research, public health, psychology, political science, environmental studies, and information science to investigate what constitutes misinformation, ... ... Cite

Perceived support from a caregiver's social ties predicts subsequent care-recipient health.

Journal Article Prev Med Rep · December 2017 Most social support research has examined support from an individual patient perspective and does not model the broader social context of support felt by caregivers. Understanding how social support networks may complement healthcare services is critical, ... Full text Open Access Link to item Cite

The Mediating Role of Meaning in the Association between Stress and Health.

Journal Article Ann Behav Med · October 2017 BACKGROUND: Stress is a common feature of life and has routinely been linked with negative health outcomes. However, meaning has been identified as a possible buffer against stress. PURPOSE: The purpose of the current study was to examine whether the relat ... Full text Link to item Cite

Memory for Media Content in Health Communication

Journal Article · August 22, 2017 Typical discussion about the success of mediated health communication campaigns focuses on the direct and indirect links between remembered campaign exposure and outcomes; yet, what constitutes information exposure and how it is remembered remain unclea ... Full text Cite

Cancer Care Coordination: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Over 30 Years of Empirical Studies.

Journal Article Ann Behav Med · August 2017 BACKGROUND: According to a landmark study by the Institute of Medicine, patients with cancer often receive poorly coordinated care in multiple settings from many providers. Lack of coordination is associated with poor symptom control, medical errors, and h ... Full text Link to item Cite

Setting the agenda for a healthy retail environment: content analysis of US newspaper coverage of tobacco control policies affecting the point of sale, 2007-2014.

Journal Article Tob Control · July 2017 BACKGROUND: Tobacco control policies affecting the point of sale (POS) are an emerging intervention, yet POS-related news media content has not been studied. PURPOSE: We describe news coverage of POS tobacco control efforts and assess relationships between ... Full text Link to item Cite

MEDIA COVERAGE OF A CRISIS RESPONSE: EXPLORING EBOLA AND TRAVELER HEALTH

Conference ANNALS OF BEHAVIORAL MEDICINE · March 1, 2017 Link to item Cite

An experimental comparison of mobile texting programs to help young adults quit smoking

Journal Article Health Systems · March 1, 2017 Text messaging interventions may offer promise for health systems, but we need more evidence. We investigated efficacy of three text messaging programs in helping smokers quit. Arm 1 had cessation assessment and quit date reminder messages. Arm 2 had Arm 1 ... Full text Cite

Correction of misleading information in prescription drug television advertising: The roles of advertisement similarity and time delay.

Journal Article Res Social Adm Pharm · 2017 BACKGROUND: Prescription drug television advertisements containing potentially consequential misinformation sometimes appear in the United States. When that happens, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration can request that companies distribute corrective adv ... Full text Link to item Cite

Physician Response to Contextualized Price-Comparison Claims in Prescription Drug Advertising.

Journal Article J Commun Healthc · 2017 BACKGROUND: Physician-targeted prescription drug advertisements sometimes include price comparisons between products that may misleadingly imply equivalence of efficacy and safety or misrepresent true savings, suggesting the potential utility of a context ... Full text Link to item Cite

Activating values to stimulate organic food purchases: can advertisements increase pro-environmental intentions?

Journal Article Journal of Consumer Marketing · January 1, 2017 Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine different strategies for an increasing adoption of “environmentally friendly” products. Scholars have consistently shown that consumers with strong biospheric and altruistic beliefs are more likely to purcha ... Full text Cite

Promoting popular understanding of science and health through social networks

Chapter · January 1, 2017 To explore how interpersonal interactions affect popular understanding of science, this chapter discusses the ways in which social interaction affects understanding of science among individuals outside of scientific institutions, the emergence of scientist ... Full text Cite

The Persistence and Peril of Misinformation

Journal Article American Scientist · 2017 Full text Cite

Perceptions of emerging tobacco products and nicotine replacement therapy among pregnant women and women planning a pregnancy.

Journal Article Prev Med Rep · December 2016 The increasing availability of emerging non-combusted tobacco products (snus, dissolvables, and electronic nicotine delivery systems or ENDS) may have implications for pregnant women and women of reproductive age. We conducted 15 focus groups to explore ho ... Full text Link to item Cite

The SmokefreeTXT (SFTXT) Study: Web and Mobile Data Collection to Evaluate Smoking Cessation for Young Adults.

Journal Article JMIR Res Protoc · June 27, 2016 BACKGROUND: Text messaging (short message service, SMS) has been shown to be effective in delivering interventions for various diseases and health conditions, including smoking cessation. While there are many published studies regarding smoking cessation t ... Full text Link to item Cite

Future Challenges and Opportunities in Online Prescription Drug Promotion Research Comment on "Trouble Spots in Online Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Promotion: A Content Analysis of FDA Warning Letters".

Journal Article Int J Health Policy Manag · January 16, 2016 Despite increased availability of online promotional tools for prescription drug marketers, evidence on online prescription drug promotion is far from settled or conclusive. We highlight ways in which online prescription drug promotion is similar to conven ... Full text Link to item Cite

Interpersonal Communication and Political Campaigns

Journal Article · December 2, 2015 AbstractInterpersonal communication has always played an essential role within politics and political campaigns. Conversations occurring between individuals, whether in person or through technology, often serve t ... Full text Cite

The Prevalence, Consequence, and Remedy of Misinformation in Mass Media Systems

Journal Article Journal of Communication · August 1, 2015 Full text Cite

Correction of Overstatement and Omission in Direct-to-Consumer Prescription Drug Advertising

Journal Article Journal of Communication · August 1, 2015 Little experimental evidence exists regarding corrective television advertising as a remedy for misleading direct-to-consumer prescription drug ads. We examined how exposure to an ad for a fictitious prescription drug that appeared to offer benefits and ri ... Full text Cite

Encoded exposure to tobacco use in social media predicts subsequent smoking behavior.

Journal Article Am J Health Promot · 2015 PURPOSE: Assessing the potential link between smoking behavior and exposure to mass media depictions of smoking on social networking Web sites. DESIGN: A representative longitudinal panel of 200 young adults in Connecticut. SETTING: Telephone surveys were ... Full text Link to item Cite

Stigma's Effect on Social Interaction and Social Media Activity.

Journal Article J Health Commun · 2015 Stigmatized topics, such as HIV/STD, likely constrain related information sharing in ways that should be apparent in social interactions both on and off the Internet. Specifically, the authors predicted that the more people perceive an issue as stigmatized ... Full text Link to item Cite

Awareness of the Food and Drug Administration's Bad Ad Program and Education Regarding Pharmaceutical Advertising: A National Survey of Prescribers in Ambulatory Care Settings.

Journal Article J Health Commun · 2015 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Bad Ad program educates health care professionals about false or misleading advertising and marketing and provides a pathway to report suspect materials. To assess familiarity with this program and the extent of trai ... Full text Link to item Cite

Energy information engagement among the poor: Predicting participation in a free workshop

Journal Article Energy Research and Social Science · December 1, 2014 Although one option for increasing low-income consumer knowledge regarding household energy use is the development of free or low-cost educational workshops, exactly how to promote attendance for such workshops remains an open question. Here we briefly out ... Full text Open Access Cite

Communication of Surveillance Findings

Chapter · November 17, 2014 In the twenty-first century, infectious diseases pose central challenges to public health officials around the globe. Because of the nature of infectious disease, many strategies for preventing and controlling infectious disease involve communication of in ... Full text Cite

Effects of advertisements on smokers' interest in trying e-cigarettes: the roles of product comparison and visual cues.

Journal Article Tob Control · July 2014 INTRODUCTION: Electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) are battery-powered nicotine delivery devices that have become popular among smokers. We conducted an experiment to understand adult smokers' responses to e-cigarette advertisements and investigate the imp ... Full text Link to item Cite

Two-Step Flow, Diffusion, and the Role of Social Networks in Political Communication

Book · July 1, 2014 AbstractAn increasing array of political communication scholars and political scientists now include interpersonal communication as part of their models. The central theoretical foundation for much of that w ... Full text Cite

Weatherization behavior and social context: The influences of factual knowledge and social interaction

Journal Article Energy Research and Social Science · January 1, 2014 Although energy behavior researchers have begun to realize that factual knowledge about energy does not always translate into specific household behaviors, many interventions continue to focus on educational strategies that assume individual knowledge to b ... Full text Cite

Method matters

Chapter · January 1, 2014 Cite

Exposure to sided media coverage of an organization, subsequent group conversations, and public relations outcomes

Journal Article Public Relations Review · September 1, 2013 We experimentally found a negative effect of subsequent group conversations after media exposure on the audience's attitudes toward the covered organization, while we found sided media exposure to predict both attitudes and behavioral intentions relevant t ... Full text Cite

Social Networks and Popular Understanding of Science and Health: Sharing Disparities

Book · August 30, 2013 A chorus of voices is celebrating the potential of social media and other new peer-to-peer connection technologies for teaching people about science and health in the 21st century. Rather than encouraging equity in what we all know and think about ... Full text Cite

An intervention to decrease adolescent indoor tanning: a multi-method pilot study.

Journal Article J Adolesc Health · May 2013 PURPOSE: Indoor tanning usually begins during adolescence, but few strategies exist to discourage adolescent use. We developed and tested a parent-teenager intervention to decrease indoor tanning use. METHODS: Through focus groups, we identified key messag ... Full text Link to item Cite

Communicating quantitative risks and benefits in promotional prescription drug labeling or print advertising.

Journal Article Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · May 2013 PURPOSE: Under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, all promotional materials for prescription drugs must strike a fair balance in presentation of risks and benefits. How to best present this information is not clear. We sought to determine if the presentatio ... Full text Link to item Cite

Communication in infectious disease surveillance: PART 1: Communication, mass media relations, and infectious disease surveillance

Chapter · March 12, 2013 Communication efforts are vital to infectious disease surveillance, prevention, and control and yet many public health practitioners overlook important aspects of contemporary mass media and of human information-processing tendencies. This chapter describe ... Full text Cite

Campaigns in context: promotion, seasonal variation, and resource factors predict mammography program participation

Journal Article Health Systems · December 1, 2012 We consider the impact of health promotion efforts on the timing of health behavior in a real-world setting alongside effects of temporally predictable and other environmental factors. By better understanding the systemic context of promotions, we sought t ... Full text Cite

The reciprocal relationships between changes in adolescent perceived prevalence of smoking in movies and progression of smoking status.

Journal Article Tob Control · September 2012 BACKGROUND: Smoking in movies is associated with adolescent smoking worldwide. To date, studies of the association mostly are restricted to the exposure to smoking images viewed by 9-15-year-olds. The association among older adolescents is rarely examined. ... Full text Link to item Cite

A changing world, unchanging perspectives: American newspaper editors and enduring values in foreign news reporting

Journal Article International Communication Gazette · June 1, 2012 The purpose of this study is to examine, through a longitudinal analysis, the priorities and beliefs that American newspaper editors hold toward foreign news reporting. Using the theory of cultural values as the framework, the study seeks to compare how Am ... Full text Cite

Jurisdictional protectionism in online news: American journalists and their perceptions of hyperlinks

Journal Article New Media and Society · June 1, 2012 Because of their widespread use on the internet, hyperlinks have become a useful tool in information sharing and knowledge distribution in online communication, particularly in the realm of journalism. Their importance has received little scholarly attenti ... Full text Cite

Behavioral consequences of conflict-oriented health news coverage: the 2009 mammography guideline controversy and online information seeking.

Journal Article Health Commun · 2012 Building on channel complementarity theory and media-system dependency theory, this study explores the impact of conflict-oriented news coverage of health issues on information seeking online. Using Google search data as a measure of behavior, we demonstra ... Full text Link to item Cite

Does it pay to pay people to share information? Using financial incentives to promote peer referral for mammography among the underinsured.

Journal Article Am J Health Promot · 2012 PURPOSE: Efforts to screen underinsured women for breast cancer face challenges in reaching desired audiences. One option is viral marketing through peer referral. We sought the optimal way to solicit nominations of peers. DESIGN: An experiment (N  =  2968 ... Full text Link to item Cite

The marketing of dissolvable tobacco: social science and public policy research needs.

Journal Article Am J Health Promot · 2012 The latest generation of smokeless tobacco products encompasses a wide range of offerings, including what is commonly referred to as dissolvable tobacco. Designed to deliver nicotine upon dissolving or disintegrating in a user's mouth, dissolvable tobacco ... Full text Link to item Cite

Religious congregations and health information diffusion: Implications for viral marketing and peer referral programs

Journal Article Journal of Applied Communication Research · November 1, 2011 While the acknowledgement of a link between religion and health is not new, the possibility of religious congregations as unique incubators for peer to peer health information diffusion remains relatively unexplored. To address that gap, this essay briefly ... Full text Cite

Why addressing the poor and underinsured is vexing.

Journal Article Health Commun · September 2011 Full text Link to item Cite

Prevalence of smoking in movies as perceived by teenagers longitudinal trends and predictors.

Journal Article Am J Prev Med · August 2011 BACKGROUND: Smoking in movies is prevalent. However, use of content analysis to describe trends in smoking in movies has provided mixed results and has not tapped what adolescents actually perceive. PURPOSE: To assess the prospective trends in the prevalen ... Full text Link to item Cite

Interpersonal communication as an indirect pathway for the effect of antismoking media content on smoking cessation.

Journal Article J Health Commun · May 2011 In the context of health campaigns, interpersonal communication can serve at least 2 functions: (a) to stimulate change through social interaction and (b) in a secondary diffusion process, to further disseminate message content. In a 3-wave prospective stu ... Full text Link to item Cite

INCREASING MAMMOGRAPHY AMONG MEDICARE-ENROLLED WOMEN THROUGH DIRECT MAIL

Journal Article ANNALS OF BEHAVIORAL MEDICINE · April 1, 2011 Link to item Cite

Knowledge Gap

Dataset · February 23, 2011 Full text Cite

Reasoned Action Frameworks

Journal Article · February 23, 2011 Reasoned action frameworks, which include the Theory of Reasoned Action and its extensions, the widely used Theory of Planned Behavior and the more recent Integrative Model of Behavioral Prediction, describe that intention to perform a behavior follows ... Full text Cite

Prevalence and characteristics of indoor tanning use among men and women in the United States.

Journal Article Arch Dermatol · December 2010 UNLABELLED: Objectives  To describe the prevalence and characteristics related to indoor tanning use among adults in the United States in the past year. DESIGN: Cross-sectional study. SETTING: Health Information National Trends Study, 2005. PARTICIPANTS: T ... Full text Link to item Cite

The availability of community ties predicts likelihood of peer referral for mammography: geographic constraints on viral marketing.

Journal Article Soc Sci Med · November 2010 Engaging social networks to encourage preventive health behavior offers a supplement to conventional mass media campaigns and yet we do not fully understand the conditions that facilitate or hamper such interpersonal diffusion. One set of factors that shou ... Full text Link to item Cite

Aging and the Questionable Validity of Recognition-Based Exposure Measurement

Journal Article Communication Research · October 19, 2010 Growing evidence suggests that basic exposure measures, such as recognition-based items, might not operate identically among older and younger adults. We present two studies relevant to this debate. Study 1 provides experimental confirmation of the recogni ... Full text Cite

The symbiosis of news coverage and aggregate online search behavior: Obama, rumors, and presidential politics

Journal Article Mass Communication and Society · September 1, 2010 Using a relatively new approach, this study examines the agenda-setting effects of television and newspaper coverage of a prominent rumor from the 2008 presidential election: the rumor that Barack Obama was secretly Muslim. In doing so, we look at the rela ... Full text Cite

On the need for a life-span approach to health campaign evaluation.

Journal Article Health Commun · September 2010 Campaign evaluation researchers should investigate age not just as an audience segmentation variable but also as a potentially valuable moderator of measure validity and campaign effects. Although researchers interested in physician-patient interaction and ... Full text Link to item Cite

A Review of: “Susanna Hornig Priest.Doing Media Research: An Introduction(2nd Ed.).”

Journal Article Mass Communication and Society · August 23, 2010 Full text Cite

The influence of first-feeding diet on the Atlantic cod Gadus morhua phenotype: survival, development and long-term consequences for growth.

Journal Article J Fish Biol · July 2010 Atlantic cod Gadus morhua larvae reached four-fold (at low larval density) to 11 fold higher body mass (high larval density) at 50 days post hatch (dph) when fed zooplankton rather than enriched rotifers. A short period (22-36 dph) of dietary change affect ... Full text Link to item Cite

Science TV news exposure predicts science beliefs: Real world effects among a national sample

Journal Article Communication Research · October 1, 2009 The authors attempt here to address a dilemma faced in recent investigation of science and health communication effects: the difficulty of assessing exposure impact in situations beyond the laboratory. Based on social representation theory, we posit that T ... Full text Cite

When (and Why) Interpersonal Talk Matters for Campaigns

Journal Article Communication Theory · February 2009 Full text Cite

New communication technologies, old questions

Journal Article American Behavioral Scientist · September 1, 2008 The recent emergence of new media, or better, new communication technologies, has afforded substantial commentary regarding societal effects, the latest chapter in a decades-old trend that rises and falls with each new communication technology. Whereas thi ... Full text Cite

Entertainment Tonight? The Value of Informative TV News Among U.S. Viewers

Journal Article Electronic News · July 2008 Local television news professionals face audience declines and a rapidly changing information environment. Faced with such circumstances, many have suggested that sensational and entertaining fare might offer a way to bolster viewership. Our data ... Full text Cite

Age, Memory Changes, and the Varying Utility of Recognition as a Media Effects Pathway

Journal Article Communication Methods and Measures · May 19, 2008 Full text Cite

Can a personality trait predict talk about science?: Sensation seeking as a science communication targeting variable

Conference Science Communication · December 1, 2007 Sensation seeking, a trait that has been invoked by public health campaign scholars as a targeting variable, also holds promise for informal science education professionals who seek to engage social networks in their promotion efforts. The authors contend ... Full text Cite

Translating user control availability into perception: the moderating role of prior experience

Journal Article Computers in Human Behavior · January 1, 2007 On a basic level, perception of user control over media content should be partially a function of control option availability. At the same time, prior user experience with control options should interact with control availability to produce joint effects o ... Full text Cite

Avian influenza and US tv news.

Journal Article Emerg Infect Dis · November 2006 Full text Link to item Cite

Connecting interpersonal and mass communication: Science news exposure, perceived ability to understand science, and conversation

Journal Article Communication Monographs · September 1, 2006 We present experimental data (n = 667) supporting three hypotheses that link science news, perceptions about science, and talk with other people. Regular television news viewers were recruited from a midsize Designated Market Area using random digit dialin ... Full text Cite

Sensation seeking, the activation model, and mass media health campaigns: Current findings and future directions for cancer communication

Journal Article Journal of Communication · August 1, 2006 The Activation Model of Information Exposure highlights the potential for individual differences in arousal in response to information, as well as the consequences of these patterns for information processing and seeking. Over the past 2 decades, the theor ... Full text Cite

Infant feeding and the media: the relationship between Parents' Magazine content and breastfeeding, 1972-2000.

Journal Article Int Breastfeed J · April 30, 2006 Mass media content likely influences the decision of women to breastfeed their newborn children. Relatively few studies have empirically assessed such a hypothesis to date, however. Most work has tended to focus either on specific interventions or on broad ... Full text Link to item Cite

Lessons on focus group methodology from a science television news project

Journal Article Technical Communication · May 1, 2005 Cite

Information Overload? Advertisement Editing and Memory Hindrance

Journal Article Atlantic Journal of Communication · March 2005 Full text Cite

Between messages and people a multilevel model of memory for television content

Journal Article Communication Research · February 1, 2005 Multilevel approaches provide a powerful way to assess simultaneously the contribution of message differences and individual differences to prediction of memory for media content. Many questions about memory legitimately invite investigation of not only fa ... Full text Cite

The good, the bad, or the ugly? A multilevel perspective on electronic game effects

Journal Article American Behavioral Scientist · December 1, 2004 When pundits - and some researchers - proclaim electronic games either altogether good or altogether bad for society, they often miss theoretical subtleties that if considered would allow us to see both the boon and the burden of the emerging technology an ... Full text Cite

Dangerous disease, dangerous women: Health, anxiety and advertising in Shanghai from 1928 to 1937

Journal Article Critical Public Health · June 1, 2004 Advertisements related to health, like other media content, often present a site laden with ideological positions and indicators of prominent theories of social relations. In so far as a society is enmeshed in large-scale structural change and tension, for ... Full text Cite

Tuning in to fit in? Acculturation and media use among Chinese students in the United States

Journal Article International Journal of Phytoremediation · January 1, 2004 This study approaches media use among international students from a uses-and-gratifications perspective to explore the relationship between need for acculturation, acculturative motives, and media use among Chinese students in the United States. Eighty-fou ... Full text Cite

A pitfall of new media? User controls exacerbate editing effects on memory

Journal Article Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly · January 1, 2004 While much research focuses on main effects of emerging media technologies, the potential for new media attributes to moderate relationships between content features and cognitive outcomes has enjoyed less attention. Do new user controls moderate editing e ... Full text Cite

Risk communication: coping with imperfection.

Journal Article Minn Med · December 2003 Link to item Cite

Automated laboratory reporting of infectious diseases in a climate of bioterrorism.

Journal Article Emerg Infect Dis · September 2003 While newly available electronic transmission methods can increase timeliness and completeness of infectious disease reports, limitations of this technology may unintentionally compromise detection of, and response to, bioterrorism and other outbreaks. We ... Full text Link to item Cite

Assessing (audience) construction hazards: depiction of audience as a variable for comparison of health interventions.

Journal Article Qual Health Res · February 2003 Current literature regarding health promotion and strategic communication lacks sufficient inquiry regarding the communication assumptions underlying many efforts in that arena and the implications of those assumptions. In addressing that void, the nature ... Full text Link to item Cite

Gender differences in young adults' beliefs about sunscreen use.

Journal Article Health Educ Behav · February 2003 This study employs focus group methodology to explore gender differences in sunscreen use. Guided by the theory of reasoned action, males and females were found to differ on each of the following constructs: behavior, behavioral beliefs, and normative beli ... Full text Link to item Cite

Residents' perspectives on the use of the Internet to improve infectious disease reporting.

Journal Article AMIA Annu Symp Proc · 2003 Reports of infectious diseases to local and state public health agencies are often delayed and incomplete. Some of the clinicians charged with the responsibility for making notifications encounter various difficulties in reporting. These may include heavy ... Link to item Cite

Predicting intentions versus predicting behaviors: domestic violence prevention from a theory of reasoned action perspective.

Journal Article Health Commun · 2002 A central assumption of many models of human behavior is that intention to perform a behavior is highly predictive of actual behavior. This article presents evidence that belies this notion. Based on a survey of 1,250 Philadelphia adults, a clear and consi ... Full text Link to item Cite

Can we measure encoded exposure? Validation evidence from a national campaign.

Journal Article J Health Commun · 2002 Exposure is often cited as an explanation for campaign success or failure. A lack of validation evidence for typical exposure measures, however, suggests the possibility of either misdirected measurement or incomplete conceptualization of the idea. If whet ... Full text Link to item Cite

Turning minds on and faucets off: Water conservation education in jordanian schools

Journal Article Journal of Environmental Education · January 1, 2001 An evaluation was conducted to measure the impact of a curriculum implementation through the Jordan Water Conservation Education Project funded by USAID. This study examined the effect of recommending water conservation at the household level and the impac ... Full text Cite

Health message relevance and disparagement among adolescents

Journal Article Communication Research Reports · January 1, 2001 In light of past work regarding message processing, communication interventions intended to encourage attitude and behavior change may face their greatest obstacles in attempting to engage those for whom messages are actually most relevant. The present stu ... Full text Cite

Colorectal cancer screening in older men and women: qualitative research findings and implications for intervention.

Journal Article J Community Health · June 2000 As part of the formative research for developing interventions to increase colorectal cancer screening in men and women aged 50 and older, 14 focus groups were conducted to identify (1) knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about colorectal cancer and colorect ... Full text Link to item Cite

Audience construction and AIDS education efforts: Exploring communication assumptions of public health interventions

Journal Article Critical Public Health · January 1, 2000 Anderson's (1996) notion of an analytic audience offers a fruitful organizing concept for discourse analysis regarding health communication interventions. An analytic audience in this context might be conceived as an entity produced by health practitioners ... Full text Cite

Curbing the Spread of Misinformation: Insights, Innovations, and Interpretations from the Misinformation Solutions Forum

Report Although many people now have access to more accumulated information than has ever been the case in human existence, we also now face a moment when the proliferation of misinformation, or false or inaccurate information, poses major challenges. In ... Full text Cite

Applying Social Science to Assess Public Interaction with Shale Gas

Report We propose a research agenda for the application of social science methods to enhance the understanding of the public’s relationship with shale gas. We summarize the history of shale gas usage and the recent increase in its prominence as a source o ... Full text Cite

Americans’ Perceived and Actual Understanding of Energy

Report To address the lack of information about American’s perceived and actual knowledge related to energy, RTI researchers measured three concepts: perceived understanding of energy, demonstrated energy knowledge, and the ability to interpret an energy ... Full text Cite

Diversifying Energy Options in a Carbon-Constrained World

Report There is a critical need to reduce the static, calm the hype, and provide a realistic and complete presentation of facts to drive climate change mitigation decisions. Diversifying Energy Options in a Carbon-Constrained World is a new series to be p ... Full text Cite

Equipping Health Professions Educators to Better Address Medical Misinformation

Report As part of a cooperative agreement with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Federal Award Identification Number [FAIN]: NU50CK000586), the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) began a strategic initiative in 2022 both to i ... Full text Cite