‘Health What?’ My Long Strange Trip Building Health Communication Inquiry
This is an autoethnographic analysis of the 50-plus years I’ve spent passionately promoting health communication inquiry. What a long, strange trip it’s been! This essay is grounded in my long-term commitment to health communication scholarship, establishing this area of inquiry, promoting health communication education, research, and application, building interdisciplinary and…
Faculty Self-Care in the Age of Covid
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, weariness proliferates throughout higher education. Staff, faculty, and administrators face challenge after challenge: meeting CDC health guidelines, moving classes online, and handling technology-related stresses brought about by the drastic, immediate shift to virtual learning. March 2020 saw many emails to faculty announcing the move to…
Mental Health in Academia During the COVID Pandemic
The Spring of 2020 was a period of stress and uncertainty for most humans. Staff, faculty, and students in higher education were no exception. Colleges and universities across the United States were forced to act (sometimes swiftly, sometimes with extreme reluctance) as on-ground, face-to-face coursework and advising became untenable. With…
COVID-19, Anti-Asian Racism, and the Racialization of Epidemics
Around mid-March this year, in the midst of what was meant to be a year-long sabbatical in China, we received an invitation to a private WeChat group populated by Asian-American parents in our suburban Cincinnati, OH school district. Such invitations were typical on the Chinese diaspora’s most popular social media…
Dear Media: Tell More Stories about Health Disparities
The Numbers Show Health Disparities Exist in a COVID-19 Era In April 2020, the data started to emerge. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that the COVID-19 virus was having disproportionately negative effects on people of color when compared with their white counterparts. Disappointingly, early information was spotty. Several…
Source Credibility During an Infodemic: The Increasing Role of Experience in Credible Communication
Since March 2020, when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, people around the world have been inundated with messages about how to prevent the spread of the deadly virus. For some, these messages stick. They heed the warnings of public health officials, washing their hands longer and…