Health Communication, Language, and Social Action across the Life Span
Summary
This book addresses communication events within health care institutions from a theory-rich, methodologically varied, and social action/positive communication orientation. Chapters in this book examine interpersonal relationships, the social environment, and culture to develop beneficial communication practices for healthcare professionals, individuals, families, and communities.
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the author
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Table of Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Editor Information
- About the Contributors
- Introduction: Health Communication, Language, and Social Action across the Life Span (Jon F. Nussbaum)
- Part One: Positive Communication in Social Action
- Chapter One: Positive Communication as Social Action: Compassion and Communication Savoring (Margaret Jane Pitts)
- Chapter Two: Humanization as Positive Communication: (De)Humanization, Personhood, and Dementia (Jake Harwood and R. Amanda Cooper)
- Chapter Three: How Positive Communication Creates Peak Communication Moments: A Qualitative Study of Adults’ Peak Experiences (Julien C. Mirivel and Bailey M. Oliver-Blackburn)
- Part Two: The Centrality of Interpersonal Communication to Our Health and Well-Being
- Chapter Four: Interpersonal Communication as Central to Health across the Lifespan: A Family-Centered Approach to Psychosocial Oncology Care (Carla L. Fisher)
- Chapter Five: Influence of Topic Avoidance, Willingness to Communicate about Health, and Social Support on Health Issues across the Life Span: Theoretical Underpinnings and Two Applied Studies (Kevin B. Wright and Mollie R. Canzona)
- Chapter Six: Family Health Legacies: Inherited Familial Health Risks and Patterns of Communication (Gemme Campbell-Salome)
- Part Three: Social Environments Conducive to Successful Aging
- Chapter Seven: Word by Word, Not Brick by Brick: Building Spaces for Successful Aging through Social Interaction and Communication (Craig Fowler)
- Chapter Eight: Comparing Baby Boomer Women’s and Men’s Sensemaking about the Transition to Retirement (Patricia E. Gettings)
- Chapter Nine: The Portrayal of Aging Spaces from a Public Relations Perspective (Lindsey B. Anderson and Victoria McDermott)
- Part Four: Translational Communication and Health
- Chapter Ten: Communication, Community, and Co-design: Using Precision Messages to Enhance Health Equity (Janice L. Krieger and Aantaki Raisa)
- Chapter Eleven: Rooted in “Places and Spaces”: Sensemaking about Identity, Culture, and Health in the Rural Midwest (Angela L. Palmer-Wackerly and Kazi Haneeya Wahed)
- Part Five: Culturally Informed Health Promotion Campaigns
- Chapter Twelve: Creating a Student-Led Healthy Aging Program for Diverse Older Adults in Alaska (Amber K. Worthington, Britteny M. Howell, Dale M. Golden and Allex Mahanna)
- Chapter Thirteen: An Alaska Native Integrated Lifecycle, Ecological, and Cultural Approach to Understanding Alzheimer’s Disease, Caregiving, and Social Determinants of Health (Rosellen M. Rosich, Steven J. Harris and Maria C. Crouch)
- Chapter Fourteen: Culturally Informed Health Promotion Campaigns in Alaska: Findings from “Untapped Talents” (Tzu-Chiao Chen, Sara L. Buckingham, Shannon Kuhn, Amana Mbise, Nyabony Gat and Sofia Sytniak)
- Epilogue: A Road Map for Health Communication Research That Makes a Difference (Mary Lee Hummert)
- Index
Introduction: Health Communication, Language, and Social Action across the Life Span
Jon F. Nussbaum
We’re going to make it a better life and leave it for the kids
It’s a lovely place, a welcome home for the human race
We’re going to make it a better life, one we can be proud of
So at the end of the day, we can laugh and say that we left them a better life
– A Better Life (George Merrill/Graham Nash)
The Language and Social Action book series co-edited by Howie Giles and David Marcowitz presents the editors of this book with a special opportunity to come together as like-minded scholars to produce an impactful tome that encapsulates many of our core theoretical and practical beliefs within Health, Language, and Social Action across the Life Span. Three fundamental worldviews or macro-level notions serve as the foundational bedrock of this book: the centrality of Language to our understanding of human behavior and human action; the uniqueness of the Health Context as an environment that can produce impactful language associated with positive life outcomes; and the Life Span Developmental nature of human interaction. These guiding theoretical principles and the impactful behavior we have investigated move our understanding of language and social action within the healthcare context significantly beyond that which currently exists.
The editors and authors of this book place the understanding and use of language within social interaction as a necessary condition of any true attempt to grasp meaning within human behavior. George Carlin (the recently passed comedian and social commentator) spent the major portion of his illustrious career in comedy emphasizing the extreme significance of words and language that meaningfully impact every aspect of our lives. Carlin was also a staunch supporter of the significance of context that determines the appropriateness and functionality of language. While numerous scholars within the general domains of Communication, Linguistics, Social Psychology, and Language Studies have made their careers emphasizing the significance of language and language use in context, George Carlin has touched, influenced, and helped to entertain many individuals on this message and made some excellent comedy as well. In my mind, the most heinous and “fake news” saying that has ever been produced or reproduced goes something like “sticks and stones can break my bones, but names (words) can never hurt me.” NO! Words are powerful, are agents of change, are the causes of all emotion, enable us to understand both the simple and complex, serve as the managerial tool for all human relationships, and can ultimately hurt as well as heal. Carlin, we think, would be proud of our scholarly attempts to scientifically confirm his act!
The general health context of interaction that contains all communicative events within both formal healthcare institutions (clinics, hospitals, continuing care facilities, etc.) and the majority of our familial and interpersonal relationships continue to be a primary focus of the editors of this book. We believe that the language constructed and utilized within these unique health communication encounters demand careful scrutiny and scientific investigation as they directly influence our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being. The coeditors of this book have produced over 40 years of research that points to the difficulties of competent interaction within all health contexts. In many ways, the difficulties associated with efficient, effective, and competent communication within the healthcare context can be the major determinant of successful health outcomes.
We, also, place the dynamic and developmental process of language and communication into our fundamental, core notions of human behavior. While it may seem obvious that the very nature of human interaction is constantly changing as we as individuals develop throughout our lives, surprisingly few theoretical or empirical investigators within the general disciplines of Communication, Language, and Social Psychology ground their research within a life span developmental perspective. An essential ingredient to our full understanding of the possible consequences for language and social interaction within the health context is the age and relational history of the interactants. Many of the interactional contexts within health are intergenerational. These intergenerational communication encounters demand a higher level of coordination to provide possible, positive health outcomes but are often challenged by ageism and a lack of appropriate intergenerational communication skills.
Several formal theories of Intergroup and Interpersonal Communication inform and ground our thinking within this book. Communication Accommodation Theory, Socio-emotional Selectivity Theory, Intergroup Conflict Theory, and several other theoretical paradigms are highlighted and expanded upon in the sections where appropriate. We do wish to emphasize the innovative, transformative scholarship that drives this book, pointing us toward utilizing theory to help us not only better understand the communication behavior of healthcare staff and patients but ultimately also lead to pragmatic interventions and positive social action. We feel this book serves as one of the first scholarly gatherings of language/communication researchers who are moving toward pragmatic message interventions to successfully manage positive, social health outcomes across both interactive and cognitive domains.
Our book is divided into five parts. Each part is edited by one of the coeditors of the book within his/her primary area of scholarly research. Each part includes one large state-of-the-art chapter followed by several, brief research reports. Each part is meant to stand on its own as an important statement of the current state of our knowledge in the particular part focus area and to mesh within the general fundamental principles of the book to produce a coherent and rather broad-based understanding of Health Communication, Language, and Social Action across the Life Span. In addition, the parts are hierarchically ordered from more abstract concepts to much more targeted, pragmatic social actions.
I should note that each part editor completed her/his dissertation at Penn State University under my direction. Each has moved well beyond our Happy Valley home and has produced an impressive record of programmatic research. A major motivation to organize and produce this volume is to highlight the breadth and depth of impressive scholarship that continues to flow from these health researchers far removed from our graduate seminars and the very beginnings of our programmatic research efforts.
Margaret Pitts serves as part editor of the initial part of the book entitled “Positive Communication in Social Action.” Positive communication is grounded in the language of potential communication and social engagement that creates opportunities for humans to flourish and thrive. Positive communication strategically and habitually uses language that promotes well-being and health across every point in the life span.
Carla Fisher edits the second part entitled “The Centrality of Interpersonal Communication to Our Health and Well-Being.” Our communicative lives are as central to our health and well-being across the life span as any physical or psychological process. How we communicate and manage our language with family, friends, and health professionals has both short-term and long-term implications on our ability to cope with illness, manage, or reduce disease risk, and adjust to healthy- or aging-related transitions that most likely are characterized by extreme stress.
Craig Fowler edits the third part entitled “Social Environments Conducive to Quality of Life and Successful Aging.” An individual’s sense of whether he/she is aging well depends on much more than genetics or “good luck.” An individual’s ability to communicatively construct and then appropriately manage social environments that facilitate well-being as he/she moves through the life span is the focus of this part. How people may shape their life trajectories via communication and how the “aging spaces” we help to form and co-inhabit with others are identified as a significant key to achieving a high quality of life.
Janice Krieger edits the fourth part entitled “Translational Communication in Health.” This part highlights the role of language in the social construction of health and wellness in diverse communities. The meanings associated with health messages (language) from the perspective of social group memberships (e.g., occupation, race, gender, age) are explored. This part brings together health communication, intergroup communication, and language to examine health messages from the perspective of geographic and cultural space.
Amber Worthington edits the fifth part entitled “Culturally Informed Health Communication Campaigns.” The goal of this part is to examine the importance of culturally informed campaigns to promote healthy aging in diverse communities in the arctic and subarctic regions of Alaska. This part will explore culturally appropriate language choices for social action for those in Alaska, including Alaskan older adults, Alaska Native peoples, and immigrant populations within Alaska.
We are thrilled that Mary Lee Hummert has agreed to write the “Epilogue.” Her highly respected and enormously impactful scholarly career has added significantly to our knowledge base within Communication and Aging focusing on age stereotypes and the language of ageism. Professor Hummert’s vision for the future of “Heath Communication, Language, and Social Action across the Life Span” is enlightening and inspirational.
We invite you to read this most exhaustive and up-to-date presentation of our research programs that focus on “Health Communication, Language, and Social Action across the Life Span.”
Details
- Pages
- XXIV, 348
- Publication Year
- 2024
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9781433197536
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9781433197543
- ISBN (Softcover)
- 9781433197550
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9781433197567
- DOI
- 10.3726/b21965
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2024 (December)
- Keywords
- Health Communication Social Action Life Span Successful Aging Positive Communication Caregiving Oncology Communication Retirement Rural Health Health Promotion Campaigns
- Published
- New York, Berlin, Bruxelles, Chennai, Lausanne, Oxford, 2025. XXIV, 348 pp., 6 b/w ill., 5 b/w tables.
- Product Safety
- Peter Lang Group AG