Health, Media, and Communication (Handbooks of Communication Science, 15)

Having, maintaining, and/or obtaining good health is one of the most frequently mentioned desires that people have. Although genetic and environmental factors play an important role in these lifestyles and diseases, it is also known that health-related information that people are exposed to through a variety of modalities and sources has a huge impact on people’s health, health behaviours, and their acceptance of health-related policies, as recently demonstrated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The handbook of Health, Media, and Communication presents a timely and up-to-date overview of the broad and substantial research efforts that have been invested in recent decades to understand how health communication affects health knowledge, perceptions, and discussion as well as health behaviours and, ultimately, health outcomes. The handbook is structured to reflect and address essential parts of the communication process: sender, content, medium, and recipient. In addition to providing a historical and contemporary overview, the handbook also acknowledges the novel challenges that emergent media present for health communication, such as infodemics and misinformation.

Gert-Jan de Bruijn und Heidi Vandebosch, Universität Antwerpen, Antwerpen, Belgien.

Gert-Jan de Bruijn and Heidi Vandebosch, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.