Purdue University

The graduate program in Health Communication at Purdue University is emerging as a preeminent site in the United States for theory, research, teaching, application, and advocacy.  The scholars associated with this program are committed to integrating theoretical insight and empirical research in the service of improved health communication practices.  The program in Health Communication has four areas of strategic focus:  (1) designing messages and enhancing communication skills to improve healthcare delivery and outcomes, (2) developing and assessing health communication campaigns and interventions that are responsive to the needs of at-risk and underserved populations, (3) understanding and exploiting the potentials of communication technologies for the exchange and dissemination of health-related information, and (4) exploring the ethics of health-related communication in a variety of contexts in the effort to create more humane, compassionate, and just health systems and practices.

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Graduate Faculty involved in Health Communication Research

• Austin Babrow (Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) teaches and conducts research on interpersonal health communication, social influence in health promotion and health care, and uncertainty in interpersonal and mass health communication.

• Brant R. Burleson (Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). Teaching areas include social support and well-being; communication and emotion; communication in close relationships; persuasion and social influence; interpersonal communication; communication theory/philosophy of science. Research areas include support and well-being, emotional support processes such as comforting, communication and emotion, social interaction skills and their effects on personal and social outcomes, communicative development, parent-child interaction, and communication in personal relationships such as friendships and romances.

• Hyunyi Cho (Ph.D., Michigan State University). Teaching and research areas include health risk message and media effects on diverse audiences, health communication campaigns, and risk communication.

• Mohan Dutta (Ph.D., University of Minnesota). Teaching areas include Culture, Communication, and Health, Health Communication Campaigns, and Critical Approaches to Health Communication. Research interests focus on examining the roles of structure and culture in the realm of the marginalized experiences of underserved communities.

• Erina MacGeorge (Ph.D. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign). Teaching areas include social support, personal relationships, gender, research methods and statistics. Research areas include supportive communication (advice, comforting, prayer); gender differences in support.

• Marifran Mattson (Ph.D., Arizona State University) Teaching and research areas include health communication theory, methods, and pedagogy, confidentiality and ethical dilemmas in healthcare organizations, occupational safety, public health campaigns, risk and crisis communication.

• Susan Morgan (Ph.D., University of Arizona). Teaching areas include public health campaigns, multicultural health, message design, and campaign evaluation. Research focuses on message design and evaluation for public health campaigns designed to reach multicultural populations. 

• Steven R. Wilson (Ph.D., Purdue University): teaching and research focus on persuasion and social influence within personal and professional relationships (e.g., how behavior change is negotiated) as well as parenting and child maltreatment.

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• Health Communication

• Theories of Persuasion

• Culture and Health

• Social Support and Health  

• Social Influence in Health Promotion and Care

• Coping with Illness

• Problematic Integration and Health

• Mass Media and Public Health Edutainment

• Communication Technology in Healthcare Settings

• Integrating Health Communication Theory and Practice

• Theories of Health Communication Campaigns

• Evaluating Health Communication Campaigns

• Campaign Design and Implementation

• Special Topics in Health Communication

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Austin Babrow 
Currently engaged in studies of the construction of uncertainty in the media and is commencing inquiry into variations in basic orientations to human suffering and transcendence.
Persuasion and Health

Campbell, R. G., & Babrow, A. S. (2004). The role of empathy arousal in responses to persuasive health communication. Health Communication, 16, 159-182.

Dennis, M. R., & Babrow, A. S. (2005). Effects of narrative and paradigmatic judgmental orientations on the use of qualitative and quantitative evidence in health-related inference. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 33, 328-347.

Mass Health Communication
Babrow, A. S. (1991a).  Tensions between health beliefs and desires:  Implications for a health communication campaign to promote a smoking cessation program.  Health Communication, 3, 93-112.

Babrow, A. S., Black, D. R., & Tiffany, S. T. (1990).  Beliefs, attitudes, intentions, and a smoking cessation program:  A planned behavior analysis of campaign development.  Health Communication, 2, 145-163.

Babrow, A. S., & Dutta-Bergman, M. J. (2003). Constructing the uncertainties of bioterror: A study of U.S. news reporting on the anthrax attack of Fall, 2001.  In C. B. Grant (Ed.), Rethinking communicative interaction: New interdisciplinary horizons (pp. 297-317).  Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Black, D. R., & Babrow, A. S. (1991).  Identification of campaign recruitment strategies for a stepped smoking cessation intervention for a college campus.  Health Education Quarterly, 18, 235-247.

Black, D. R., Loftus, E. A., Chatterjee, R., Tiffany, S., & Babrow, A. S. (1993).  Smoking cessation interventions for university students:  Recruitment and program design considerations based on social marketing theory.  Preventive Medicine, 22, 388-399.

Buenger, E. A., & Babrow, A. S. (in press). To hope or to know: Uncertainty and ambivalence in women’s magazine breast cancer articles. Journal of Applied Communication Research.
Interpersonal Health Communication

Babrow, A. S. (2001a).  Introduction to the special issue on uncertainty, evaluation, and communication. Journal of Communication, 51, 453-455.

Babrow, A. S. (2001b). Uncertainty, value, communication, and problematic integration. Journal of Communication, 51, 553-573.

Babrow, A. S. (in press).  Problematic integration theory. In B. B. Whaley & W. Samter (Eds.), Explaining communication: Contemporary theories and exemplars. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Babrow, A. S., & Dinn, D. (2005). Problematic discharge from physical therapy: Communicating about uncertainty and profound values. In E. B. Ray (Ed.), Health communication in practice: A case study approach (2nd ed.) (pp. 27-38).  Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Ford, L. A., Babrow, A. S., & Stohl, C. (1996).  Social support messages and the management of uncertainty in the experience of breast cancer:  An application of problematic integration theory.  Communication Monographs, 63, 189-207.

Hines, S. C., Babrow, A. S., Badzek, L., & Moss, A. (1997).  Communication and problematic integration in end-of-life decisions:  Dialysis decisions among the elderly.  Health Communication, 9, 199-217.

Hines, S. C., Babrow, A. S., Badzek, L., & Moss, A. (2001). From coping with life to coping with death: Problematic integration for the seriously ill elderly.  Health Communication, 13, 327-342.

Hines, S. C., Glover, J. J., Holley, J. L., Babrow, A. S., Badzek, L. A., & Moss, A. H. (1999).  Dialysis patients’ preferences for family-based advance care planning.  Annals of Internal Medicine, 130, 825-828.

Hines, S. C., Glover, J. J., Babrow, A. S., Holley, J. L., Badzek, L. A., & Moss, A. H. (2001). Preferences for advanced care planning: Differences between dialysis patients and their surrogates. Journal of Palliative Medicine, 4, 481-489.

Holley, J. L., Hines, S. C., Glover, J. J., Babrow, A. S., Badzek, L. A., & Moss, A. H. (1999).  Failure of advance care planning to elicit patients’ preferences for withdrawal from dialysis.  American Journal of Kidney Disease, 33, 688-693.

Health Communication Theory and Problematic Integration Theory (including the PI analysis of Uncertainty in Illness)

Babrow, A. S. (1992).  Communication and problematic integration:  Understanding diverging probability and value, ambiguity, ambivalence, and impossibility.  Communication Theory, 2, 95-130.

Babrow, A. S., Hines, S. C., & Kasch, C. R. (2000). Managing uncertainty in illness explanation: An application of problematic integration theory.  In B. B. Whaley (Ed.), Explaining illness:  Messages, strategies and contexts (pp. 41-67).  Hillsdale, NJ:  Erlbaum.

Babrow, A. S., Kasch, C. R., & Ford, L. A. (1998).  The many meanings of “uncertainty” in illness:  Toward a systematic accounting. Health Communication, 10, 1-24.

Babrow, A. S., & Kline, K. N. (2000). From "reducing" to "coping with” uncertainty:  Reconceptualizing the central challenge in breast self-exams.  Social Science & Medicine, 51, 1805-1816.

Babrow, A. S., & Mattson, M. (2003). Theorizing about health communication.  In T. Thompson, A. Dorsey, K. Miller, & R. Parrott (Eds.), Handbook of health communication (pp. 35-61) Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Brashers, D. E., & Babrow, A. S. (1996).  Theorizing health communication.  Communication Studies, 47, 243-2

Brant Burleson
Recent research projects have examined: cultural and gender differences in responses to emotional support strategies; motivational factors that influence the provision of and responses to emotional support; and the adaptive function of narratives in coping with loss and emotional distress in later life. Current research projects include: the development of a general model of motivational factors that influence communicative action; the development and assessment of a dual-process model of responses to emotional support messages; and empirical analyses of how the tendency to initiate problem discussions with relationship partners is related to several aspects of physiological functioning, health, and well-being. 

Burleson, B. R., & Kunkel, A. W. (1996).  The socialization of emotional support skills in childhood.  In G. R. Pierce, B. R. Sarason, & I. G. Sarason (Eds.), Handbook of social support and the family (pp. 105-140).  New York: Plenum Press.

Burleson, B. R., & Denton, W. H. (1997).  The relationship between communication skills and marital satisfaction:  Some moderating effects.  Journal of Marriage and the Family, 59, 884-902.

Burleson, B. R., & Goldsmith, D. J. (1998).  How the comforting process works:  Alleviating emotional distress through conversationally induced reappraisals.  In P. A. Anderson & L. K. Guerrero (Eds.), Handbook of communication and emotion:  Theory, research, application and contexts (pp. 245-280).  San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Denton, W. H., Reynolds, D. L., Burleson, B. R., & Anderson, R. T. (1999).  The role of marital status in health services expenditures for psychiatric outpatients.  Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 25, 383-392.

Denton, W. H., Burleson, B. R., Clark, T. E., Rodriguez, C. P., & Hobbs, B. V. (2000).  A randomized trial of emotion-focused therapy for couples in a training clinic.  Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, 26, 65-78

Xu, Y., & Burleson, B. R. (2001).  Effects of gender, culture, and support type on perceptions of spousal social support:  An assessment of the “support gap” hypothesis in early marriage.  Human Communication Research, 27, 535-566

Denton, W. H., Burleson, B. R., Hobbs, B. V., von Stein, M., & Rodriguez, C. P. (2001).  Cardiovascular reactivity and initiate/avoid patterns of marital communication:  A test of Gottman’s psychophysiologic model of marital interaction.  Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 24, 401-421. (lead article)

Burleson, B. R., & Kunkel, A. W. (2002).  Parental and peer contributions to the support skills of the child:  From whom do children learn to express support?  Journal of Family Communication, 2, 79-97.

Burleson, B. R., & MacGeorge, E. L. (2002).  Supportive communication.  In M. L. Knapp & J. A. Daly (Eds.), Handbook of interpersonal communication (3rd ed., pp. 374-424).  Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Burleson, B. R. (2003).  Emotional support skill.  In J. O. Greene & B. R. Burleson (Eds.), Handbook of communication and social interaction skills (pp. 551-594).  Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Jones, S. M., & Burleson, B. R. (2003).  Effects of helper and recipient sex on the experience and outcomes of comforting messages: An experimental investigation.  Sex Roles, 48, 1-19. (lead article)

Burleson, B. R. (2003).  The experience and effects of emotional support:  What the study of cultural and gender differences can tell us about close relationships, emotion, and interpersonal communication.  Personal Relationships, 10, 1-23. 

Burleson, B. R., & Mortenson, S. R. (2003). Explaining cultural differences in evaluations of emotional support behaviors: Exploring the mediating influences of value systems and interaction goals. Communication Research, 30, 113-146. 

Xu, Y., & Burleson, B. R. (2004). The association of experienced spousal support with marital satisfaction:  Evaluating the moderating effects of sex, ethnic culture, and type of support.  Journal of Family Communication, 4, 123-145.

Caplan, S. E., Haslett, B. J., & Burleson, B. R. (2005). Telling it like it is: The adaptive function of narratives in coping with loss in later life. Health Communication, 17, 233-251.

Holmstrom, A. J., Burleson, B. R., & Jones, S. M. (2005). Some consequences for helpers who deliver "cold comfort":  Why it's worse for women than men to be inept when providing emotional support. Sex Roles, 53, 153-172.  (lead article)

Burleson, B. R. (2005).  Some ethical considerations concerning the pragmatic application of research on personal relationships:  Evaluating the safety and efficacy of our prescriptions.  Relationship Research News, 4(1), 14-20.

Burleson, B. R., Holmstrom, A. J., & Gilstrap, C. M. (2005).  “Guys can’t say that to guys”:  Four experiments assessing the normative motivation account for deficiencies in the emotional support provided by men.  Communication Monographs, 72, 468-501.

Denton, W. H., & Burleson, B. R. (2005, July).  Demand-withdraw dyadic communication in cardiac rehabilitation patients.  Paper presented at the International Association for Relationships Research Mini Conference on Exploring Relationships in Health or Health Relationships, Indianapolis. 

Hyunyi Cho
Research has examined message/media effects on diverse audiences, perceived risk, self-efficacy, and norms as they relate to health/risk behaviors; issues related to development and evaluation of health communication campaigns, and methodological issues in understanding audience beliefs and behaviors. Recent publications include:

Cho, H. (forthcoming). Influences of self-monitoring and goal-setting on drinking refusal self-efficacy and drinking behavior. Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly. 

Cho, H., & Salmon, C.T. (2006, in press). Fear appeals for individuals in different stages of change: Intended and unintended effects and implications on public health campaigns. Health Communication.

Cho, H. (2006). Readiness to change, norms, and self-efficacy in heavy drinking college students. Journal of Studies on Alcohol.  

Marifran Mattson
Health Communication Theory and Methods
This group of studies integrates the principles of communication to design or extend current models and research approaches to health communication practice. 

Mattson, M. & Basu, A. (under review).  Messaging model for health communication campaigns:  Toward a social marketing framework grounded in communication theory and research.

Dutta-Bergman, M. & Mattson, M. (in press).  Decomplexifying communication strategies in response to bioterrorism: Toward a synergistic crisis communication model.  S. Amass (Ed.).  Purdue University Homeland Security Institute Book Series, Vol. 1. Purdue University Press. 

Mattson, M., & Stage, C. (2003). Contextualized conversation: Interviewing exemplars. In R.P. Clair (Ed.), Expressions of Ethnography: Novel approaches to qualitative methods. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Babrow, A., & Mattson, M.  (2003).  Theorizing about health communication.  In T. Thompson, A. Dorsey, K.I. Miller & R. Parrot (Eds.), Handbook of Health Communication.  Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Confidentiality and Ethical Dilemmas
This ongoing program of research highlights faculty/graduate student collaborations in the study of personal and community safety.  These studies consider alternative approaches to safety that emphasize harm minimization rather than the elimination of unhealthy behaviors and promote ethical interactions in healthcare and public health contexts.

Mattson, M., & Basnyat, I.  (in progress).  A harm reduction approach to communication during HIV test counseling.  For inclusion  in T. Edgar, S. Noar, & V. Freimuth (eds.).  Communication perspectives for HIV/AIDS in the 21st century.

Hall, J. G. & Mattson, M.  (under review).  Reframing the discourse to problematize disordered eating and eating disorders:  A thematic analysis of popular women’s magazine articles.

Brann, M. & Mattson, M. (2004). Toward a typology of confidentiality breaches in health care communication: An ethic of care analysis of provider practices and patient perceptions. Health Communication, 16, 231-251.

Brann, M. & Mattson, M. (2004). Reframing communication during gynecological exams: A feminist virtue ethics of care perspective. Gendered approaches to applied communication. P. Buzzanell, H. Sterk & L. Turner (Eds.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Mattson, M. & Brann, M. (2002). Managed care and the paradox of patient confidentiality: A case study analysis from a Communication Boundary Management perspective. Communication Studies, 53, 337-357.

Occupational Safety in the Aviation Industry
Funded by grants from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and United Technologies and part of a collaborative research effort between the Departments of Communication and Aviation Technology, these projects addressed the occupational safety challenges experienced by workers in the economically competitive aviation environment.

Armentrout-Brazee, C., & Mattson, M. (2004). Clash of subcultures in on-gate communication. In M.A. Turney (Ed.), Tapping diverse talent in aviation: Culture, gender, and diversity. Hampshire, UK: Ashgate.

Mattson, M., Petrin, D.A., Young, J. P. (2001). Integrating safety in the aviation system: Interdepartmental training for pilots and maintenance technicians. Journal of Air Transportation World Wide, 6, 37-64.

Public Health Campaigns
Funded by a fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the following projects are based on experiences and data collected while working on three distinct public health campaigns which utilize and extend principles of social marketing, and risk and crisis communication.

Mattson, M., et al. (in progress).  Evaluating the CDC’s DES Update campaign.

Mattson, M. (in progress). Maintaining the message: Sustaining a risk communication campaign in the face of anthrax. Crisis communication and the public health. Sage.

Lindegren, M L., Kobrynski, L., Rasmussen, S. A., Moore, C. A., Grosse, S. D., Vanderford, M. L., Spira, T. J., McDougal, J. S., Vogt, R. F., Hannon, W. H., Kalman, L. V., Chen, B., Mattson, M., Baker, T. G., Khoury, M. (2004). Applying public health strategies to primary immunodeficiency diseases: A potential approach to genetic disorders. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly, 53, 1-29.

Susan Morgan
Current research involves conducting and evaluating worksite campaigns to promote organ donation. In addition, she is currently conducting a large-scale media monitoring project to discover how organ donation is portrayed in the media. This work (and other projects related to organ donation) is funded by the Human Resources Services Administration (HRSA). Her previous work in the areas of drug abuse prevention and agricultural injury prevention has been funded by the National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).

Current Grants
2004 – 2006          Evaluator/Principal Researcher, “The Life Share Project: A Multi-media and Grassroots Campaign to Promote African American Organ Donation.”  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Transplantation, $598,823.

2004 – 2007          Principal Investigator, “The Workplace Partnership for Life: A Replicable Worksite Campaign.” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Transplantation, $1.67 million.

2002 - 2006           Principal Investigator, “The University Worksite Organ Donation Promotion Campaign: Targeting Administrators, Faculty, Staff, and Students Using the Organ Donation Model.”  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Transplantation, $1.5 million.

Publications
Morgan, S.E., Harrison, T.R., Long, S.D., Afifi, W.A., Stephenson, M.  (In press).  In their own words: A multicultural qualitative study of the reasons why people will (not) donate organs.  Health Communication.

Morgan, S.E., Harrison, T.R., Chewning, L.V., and Habib, J.G. (in press, 2006). America’s angel or thieving immigrant?  Media coverage, the Santillan story, and public ambivalence toward donation and transplantation.  In Wailoo, K., Guarnaccia, P., Livingston, J. (Eds.) Beyond the Bungled Transplant: Jessica Santillan and High-Tech Medicine in Cultural Perspective.  University of North Carolina Press, Studies in Social Medicine series.

Morgan, S. E. (2005).  Building and evaluating a theory-based organ donation campaign: An academic and community partnership.  In Lederman, L., Taylor, M., and Gibson, D. (Eds.) The Communication Theory Reader.  Kendall Hunt.

Morgan, S. E., Harrison, T.R., Afifi, W.A., Long, S.D., Stephenson, M., Reichert, T.  (2005). Family discussions about organ donation: How the media is used to justify opinions and influence others about donation decisions.  Clinical Transplantation, 19(5) 674-682.

Morgan, S. E. (2004).  The power of talk: African-Americans’ communication with family members and its impact on the willingness to donate organs.  Journal of Personal and Social Relationships, 21(1) 117-129.

DeSantis, A. and Morgan, S. E.  (2004). Civil liberties, the constitution, and cigars: Anti-smoking conspiracy logic in Cigar Aficionado 1992-2001. Communication Studies, 55 (2).

Morgan, S.E. and Cannon, T.  (2003)  African Americans’ knowledge about organ donation: Closing the gap with more effective persuasive message strategies.  Journal of the National Medical Association, 95(11) 1066-1071.

Morgan, S. E., Palmgreen, P., Stephenson, M., Hoyle, R., and Lorch, E.  (2003). Associations between formal message features and subjective evaluations of the sensation value of anti-drug public service announcements.  Journal of Communication,53(3) 1-15.

DeSantis, A. and Morgan, S. E.  Sometimes a Cigar [Magazine] is more than just a cigar [Magazine]: Pro-smoking arguments in Cigar Aficionado, 1992-2000 (2003).  Health Communication, 15(3) 457-480.

Morgan, S. E., Miller, J., and Arasaratnam, L. A.  (2003).  Similarities and differences between African Americans’ and European Americans’ attitudes, knowledge, and willingness to communicate about organ donation.  Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 33(4) 693-715.

Morgan, S. E., Miller, J., and Arasaratnam, L. A. (2002).   Signing cards, saving lives: An evaluation of the Worksite Organ Donation Promotion Project.  Communication Monographs, 69(3) 253-273.

Morgan, S. E. and Miller, J.  (2002a) Communicating about gifts of life: The effect of knowledge, attitudes, and altruism on behavior and behavioral intentions regarding organ donation.  Journal of Applied Communication Research, 30 (2), 163-178.

Morgan, S. E. and Miller, J. (2002b).  Beyond the organ donor card: The effect of knowledge, attitudes, and values on willingness to communicate about organ donation to family members.   Health Communication, 14 (1) 121-134.

Stephenson, M. T., Morgan, S. E., Lorch, E. P., Palmgreen, P., Donohew, L., and  Hoyle, R. H.  (2002).  Predictors of message exposure from an anti-marijuana media campaign: Outcome research assessing the impact of targeting high sensation seekers.  Health Communication, 14 (1) 23-43.

Steve Wilson
Several recent projects explore patterns of parent-child interaction that distinguish families with a history of child physical abuse and/or neglect from socio-demographically similar families with no history of child maltreatment. 

Parenting and Family Violence
Types of parental and child behavior that distinguish families with a history of child abuse or neglect from sociodemographically similar families with no maltreatment history; perceptual biases held by physically abusive parents. Representative publications include:

Wilson, S. R., Shi, X., Tirmenstein, L., Norris, A., & Combs, J. (in press). Parental physical negative touch and child noncompliance in abusive, neglectful, and comparison families: A meta-analysis of observational studies. In L. Turner & R. West (Eds.), Family communication: A reference for theory and research.  Newbury Park, CA: Sage

Wilson, S. R., Morgan, W. M., Hayes, J., Bylund, C., & Herman, A. (2004). Mothers’ child abuse potential as a predictor of maternal and child behaviors during playtime interactions. Communication Monographs, 71, 395-421.

Wilson, S. R., & Whipple, E. E.  (2001). Attributions and regulative communication by parents participating in a child physical abuse prevention program.  In V. Manusov and J. Harvey (Eds.), Attributions, communication behavior, and close relationships (pp. 227-247).  New York:  Cambridge University Press.

Interpersonal Influence
Compliance Seeking and Resisting – how individuals go about trying to bring about desired behavior change in others; how behavior change gets negotiated in interpersonal relationships.  Representative publications include:

Wilson, S. R. (2002). Seeking and resisting compliance: Why people say what they do when trying to influence others. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Wilson, S. R., Cruz, M. G., Marshall, L. J., & Rao, N.  (1993).  An attributional analysis of compliance-gaining interactions.  Communication Monographs, 60, 352-372.

Pamela Whitten
Prior research projects range from telepsychiatry to telehospice and telehome care for COPD and CHF patients. She is currently funded to evaluate deployment of telemedicine in nursing homes and to study the creation of health websites for low literate adults.

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