Coalition for Health Communication

Texas A & M University
Department of Communication

Overview

Texas A & M houses a nationally-ranked, top 10 graduate (M.A. & Ph.D.) program in health communication. Graduate courses cover a spectrum of topics, including professional health care practices and structures, public health promotion and education, and citizen participation. Graduate students are encouraged to participate in research with faculty on issues including patient-provider interactions, media health campaigns, family care giving, cultural beliefs and practices, social and professional changes within health care organizations, personal and public health narratives, and interactive technology in health promotion. Two faculty members have been named ICA/NCA Outstanding Health Communication Scholars, Dr. Rick Street in 2003 and Dr. Barbara Sharf in 2005. The Department of Communication has collaborative relationships with the School of Rural Public Health, College of Medicine, and the Center for the Study of Health Disparities at Texas A & M, Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, and community-based agencies and health facilities.

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Faculty
Katherine I. Miller (Professor & Director of Graduate Studies), Ph.D., University of Southern California, Health Communication and Organizational Communication (communication in health and human service organizations, emotional labor and stress and burnout of care providers, home health provision), co-editor, Handbook of Health Communication.
Barbara F. Sharf (Professor), Ph.D., University of Minnesota, patient-physician communication, cultural and health care, patients’ experience of illness, qualitative methods, and narrative inquiry in health communication. 2005 NCA/ICA Outstanding Health Communication Scholar.
Michael T. Stephenson (Associate Professor), Ph.D. University of Kentucky, implementation and evaluation of media health campaigns; anti-drug campaigns for sensation-seeking adolescents; anti-drug messages segmented for parenting styles; organ donation campaigns; anti-tobacco media campaigns for young adult Latinos; social science methodology. Senior Editor, Health Communication.
Nancy Street (Senior Lecturer, Coordinator for Undergraduate Advising, Internship Coordinator) M.A. University of Texas, also, speech/language pathologist; overview health communication, leading in community, ethics, clinical communication and pedagogical development.
Richard L. Street, Jr. (Professor & Department Head), Ph.D., University of Texas, communication in medical consultations, factors affecting patient participation in care, and the use of interactive media to provide health services and resources. 2003 NCA/ICA Outstanding Health Communication Scholar.
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Courses
COMM 370- Survey of theory and research in health communication, including interaction between parties and providers, communication in health care organizations, health care campaigns, and cultural meanings of health and illness.

COMM 470- Senior seminar in health communication. Principles of health communication applied to situations ranging from physician-patient communication to public health campaign theory, design, implementation and evaluation. May be taken two times.
COMM 669- Research in Health Communication (survey class), including social construction of health and illness, interaction between patients and providers, communication in health care organizations, health care campaigns, social support and health communities, health activism and empowerment.
COMM 670- Seminar in Health Communication (special topics seminars; recent offerings have included Active Patient Participation in Health Care, Health Campaigns, Health Communication in Cultural Contexts, Health Communication in the Age of Manged Care, Interactive Health Communication Technology, Narrative Inquiry in Health Communication. May be taken up to three times.

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Summary of Department Research Completed or in Process

Current projects:

Miller: Beginning data collection on interview study of family caregivers to elderly parents. Considering issues of caregiver identity, sibling negotiation regarding care responsibility, and ability of caregivers to navigate interaction within health care organizations.

Sharf: (with Patricia Geist-Martin) Practitioner perspectives on the role of communication in holistic/integrative medical practice; (with Paul Haidet & Tony Kroll) A model of patient participation, engagement, and partnership; (with Carolyn Clark) Ethical dilemmas in conducting qualitative research.

Stephenson: Developing audience segmentation strategy to use with anti-drug ads for parents of adolescents; implementing anti-tobacco media campaign for high sensation-seeking young adult Latinos; campaign to promote organ donor cards among Texas colleges and universities.

Street: (with Ron Epstein) Patient-centered communication in cancer care. Working on a white paper developing a model of patient-centered communication processes and outcomes in cancer care; (with H. Gordon). Working on a project examining how the clinical context and the presence of a companion can either impose constraints on or opportunities for patient participation and physician informativeness.

Current grants:

Miller, K.I. (Co-investigator). Developing an integrated health outreach system for isolated colonia residents in Hidalgo County, TX. Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. (Principal Investigator: Jim Burdine, TAMU School of Rural Public Health, Community Health Research Center).

Stephenson, M.T. (Co-investigator). University Worksite Organ Donation Promotion Campaign: Targeting Administrators, Faculty, Staff, and Students Using the Organ Donation Model. HHS, Division of Transportation. 1 H39 OT 00120-01. (Principal Investigator: Susan Morgan, Purdue University). 9-1-02/8-31-06.

Stephenson, M.T. (Consultant). Preventing tobacco use in young Latino workers in Texas. Centers for Disease Control. (Principal Investigator: Ramirez). 9-30-04-9-29-07.

Street, R.L. Jr. (Co-investigator). Patient coaching to improve care for cancer pain. American Cancer Society. RSGPB-06-091-01-CPPB. (Principal Investigator: Richard Kravitz, UC Davis Medical Center). 1-1-06/12-31-10. $1,531,000. TAMU portion $280,334.

Street, R.L. Jr. (Co-investigator). Physician-Patient Communication in Patients with Heart Failure. Health Services Research & Development Service, Department of Veterans Affairs. ECV02-254. (Principal Investigator: Howard Gordon, Baylor College of Medicine). 7-1-04/6-30-09. $ 1,481,105 (direct cost). TAMU portion $151,000.

Street, R.L. Jr. & Sharf, BF. (Co-investigators). Impact of provider-patient interaction on response to acupuncture. NIH R01-AR-04999. (Principal Investigator: Maria Suarez-Almazor, Baylor College of Medicine). 10-01-02/9-30-06. $2,604,119. TAMU portion $160,578.

Street, R.L. Jr. (Co-investigator). Treatment adherence in minorities with rheumatic disease. NIH R01 AR47858-01A1 (Principal Investigator: Maria Suarez-Almazor, Baylor College of Medicine). 3-31-02/2-28-07. $2,239,574. TAMU portion $168,932.

Recent Publications:

Gordon, H.S., Street, R.L. , Jr., Sharf, B.F., Kelly, P.A., Souchek, J. (in press). Racial differences in trust and patients' perceptions of physicians' communication. Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Gordon, H.S., Street, R.L. Jr., Kelly, P.A., Soucheck, J., & Wray, N.P.. (in press) Physician-patient communication after following invasive procedures: An analysis of post-angiogram consultations. Social Science and Medicine.

Miller, K., & Considine, J. (2006, Forthcoming). Communication in the helping professions. In L. Frey and K. Cissna (Eds.), Handbook of applied communication research. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Miller, K., Apker, J. (2002). On the front lines of managed care: Professional changes a communicative dilemmas for hospital nurses. Nursing Outlook, 50, 154-159.

Koesten, J., Miller, K. I., & Hummert, M. L. (2002). Family communication, self-efficacy and white adolescent females’ risk behavior. Journal of Family Communication, 2, 7-27.

Miller, K.I., & Ryan, D.J. (2001). Communication in the age of managed care: Introduction to the special issue. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 29, 91-96.

Sharf, BF (2005). How I fired my surgeon and embraced an alternative narrative. In L.M. Harter, P.M. Japp, & C.S. Beck (Eds.), Narratives, Health, and Healing: Communication Theory, Research, and Practice (pp. 325-342) . Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Assoc.

Sharf, BF, Haidet, P & Kroll, T. (2005). “I want you to put me in the grave with all my limbs”: The meaning of active health participation. In E.B. Ray (Ed.), Health Communication in Practice (pp. 39-51). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum Assoc.

Sharf, B.F., Stelljes, L.A. & Gordon , H. (2005), DOI:10.1002/pon.885. “A little bitty spot and I’m a great big man”: Patients’ perspectives on refusing diagnosis or treatment for lung cancer. Psycho-Oncology 14: 636-646.

Sharf, B.F. & Vanderford, M.L. (2003). Social narratives and the construction of health. In A. Dorsey, K.I. Miller, R. Parrott & T. Thompson, (Eds.), Handbook of Health Communication. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc., pp. 9-34.

Stephenson, M. T., & Quick, B. L. (2005). Parent ads in the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. Journal of Health Communication, 10, 701-710.

Stephenson, M. T., Quick, B. L., Atkinson, J., & Tschida, D. A. (2005). Authoritative parenting and drug-prevention practices: Implications for anti-drug ads for parents. Health Communication, 17, 301-321.

Stephenson, M. T., & Holbert, R. L. (2003). A Monte Carlo simulation of observable- versus latent-variable structural equation modeling techniques. Communication Research, 30, 332-354.

Stephenson, M. T. (2003). Examining adolescents’ responses to antimarijuana PSAs. Human Communication Research, 29, 343-369.

Street, R.L., Jr., Gordon, H.S., Ward, M.M., Krupat, E. & Kravitz, R.L. (2005). Patient participation in medical consultations: Why some patients are more involved than others. Medical Care, 43, 960-969.

Street, R L. Jr., Krupat, E., Bell, R., Kravitz, R. & Haidet, P. (2003). Beliefs about control in the physician-patient Relationship: The effect on communication in medical encounters. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 18, 609-616.

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For more information, please contact:

Name: Barbara Sharf
Address: Dept. of Communication, MS 4234
4234 TAMU
College Station, TX 77843-4234
Email: bsharf@tamu.edu
Phone Number: (979) 845-0625
Fax Number: (979) 845-6594

Websites
Texas A & M University http://www.tamu.edu/
Department of Communication http://comm.tamu.edu/

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