Rethinking Culture in Health Communication: Social Interactions as Intercultural Encounters

Winner of 2026 Distinguished Book Award, Health Communication Division, National Communication Association

An interdisciplinary overview of health communication using a cultural lens―uniquely focused on social interactions in health contexts
 
In increasingly diverse communities around the world, patients, health professionals, and policymakers embody cultural constructs that impact healthcare processes. Rethinking Culture in Health Communication explores the ways culture influences healthcare, introducing new approaches to understanding social relationships and health policies as a dynamic process involving cultural values, expectations, motivations, and behavioral patterns. This innovative textbook integrates theories and practices in health communication, public health, and medicine to help students relate fundamental concepts to their personal experiences and develop an awareness of how all individuals and groups are shaped by culture.

Elaine Hsieh, is Professor and Chair at the Department of Communication Studies, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. An award-winning author, Fulbright Scholar, and NIH-funded researcher, she has published extensively to examine the intersections of culture, language, health, and medicine in interpersonal and cross-cultural contexts. She is currently Associate Editor for Health Communication. She has served as the Chair of the Health Communication Division at the National Communication Association and as Associate Editor for the Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health (2010-2017).

Eric Mark Kramer, is Presidential Professor of Communication and Affiliate Faculty in the College of International and Area Studies and the Department of Film and Media Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He is Senior Editor of The Oxford University Research Encyclopedia on Communication, International and Global Communication, Associate Editor of the Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, a founding Director of the EU Institute for Studies in Comparative Civilizations, author and editor of 11 books.