WORKING GROUP FOR HEALTH COMMUNICATION

LORENDA BELONE

Doctoral student

ljoe@salud.unm.edu

Goal:

To address health risk behaviors of American Indians by adapting and creating culturally specific prevention and intervention programs

Health Communication Interests:

• Community-based participatory research
• Process evaluation

Current and Pending Health Communication Projects

• Family intervention trial of a culturally specific alcohol and other risky behavior prevention program in partnership with Ramah Navajo Chapter and Jemez Pueblo reservation

PATRICIA COVARRUBIAS

Assistant professor

pocb@unm.edu

Goal:

To understand how culture influences perceptions of interaction rules between patients and caregivers

Health Communication Interests:

• Applying discourse analysis to health interactions
• Intercultural differences and cultural variability in perceptions of effective health provider communication

Current and Pending Health Communication Projects

• Evaluating the effectiveness of a health campaign designed to enhance understanding of the neuroscience of drug use

TAMAR GINOSSAR

Adjunct instructor

tginossar@yahoo.com

Goal:

To understand and facilitate usage of new communication technologies for health information seeking and empowerment in multicultural setting

Health Communication Interests:

• Internet and computer mediated communication
• Cultural influences
• Information seeking of patient and family members

Current and Pending Health Communication Projects:

• Exploring how women cope with ovarian and breast cancer (with the University of Arizona)
• Examining the influence of coping styles on usage of computer enhanced health information system (With the University of Wisconsin)
• Investigating usage of Internet Cancer Communities for health information exchange and empowerment
• Online information and support needs of family members of alcohol dependent individuals

CHRIS HOLLIS

Doctoral student

chollis@salud.unm.edu

Goal:

To examine the connection of health literacy and health behavior

Health Communication Interests:

• Social marketing and prevention marketing
• Community-based participatory research

Current and Pending Health Communication Projects:

• Development of a health literacy scale to evaluate effectiveness of health literacy programs
• Media literacy for health

KRIS KIRSCHBAUM

Doctoral student

kkirschbaum@salud.unm.edu

Goal:

To examine how patient and providers individual and cultural communication patterns and styles affect the provision of quality health care

Health Communication Interests:

• Provider-patient discourse
• Communication training for health professionals

Current and Pending Health Communication Project

• Training of medical students in communication issues including use of invitational rhetoric, narrative, and intercultural diversity
• Communication training for medical residency programs
• Examination of narrative and self-identity in geriatric populations

LISSA KNUDSEN

Doctoral student

lknudsen@unm.edu

Goal:

To address stigma, labeling, and the identity construction of severe mental illness (e.g. people labeled with Schizophrenia and Bi-Polar Disorder)

Health Communication Interests:

• Disclosure/Contact as a stigma reduction strategy
• Media representations and identity construction
• Advocacy/Community-Based Participatory Research
• Internet-based assessments

Current and Pending Health Communication Projects

• Examining how police offricers construct severe mental illness
• Advocating for breastfeeding/pumping on university campuses
• Examining the relationship between the John Hyde case and the passing of Kendra's Law in Albuquerque, NM
  

PAMELA LUTGEN-SANDVIK

Assistant professor

plutgen@unm.edu

Goal:

To understand the consequences of workplace bullying on the mental health of the recipient and his/her family

Health Communication Interests:

• Developing supportive organizational cultures

Current and Pending Health Communication Projects:

• Examining how family members cope with a loved one being bullied at work

• Evaluating the effectiveness of a health campaign designed to enhance understanding of the neuroscience of drug use

GINNY McDERMOTT

Assistant professor

ginnymcd@unm.edu

Goal:

To enhance supportive communication and create supportive environments at a variety of levels, including communities, corporations, and relationships.

Health Communication Interests:

• Health disparities
• Problem-talk and the facilitation of coping

Current and Pending Health Communication Projects:

• Preventing American Indian adolescent substance use through peer-developed and peer-implemented health communication campaigns

• Evaluating the effectiveness of a health campaign designed to enhance understanding of the neuroscience of drug use

• Examining narratives of coping and perceptions of problem onset

UNA MEDINA

Doctoral student

iomedia@unm.edu

Goal:

To address health communication and development communication in underdeveloped communities in developed and developing countries

Health Communication Interests:

• Digital divide
• Persuasive message variation
• Diffusion of innovations

Current and Pending Health Communication Projects:

• A qualitative analysis of the rhetoric of Mothers Against Drunk Driving Victim Impact Presentation (MADD VIPP coupled with a quantitative analysis of drunk drivers recidivism)
• Edited textbook on development communication

JOHN OETZEL

Associate professor

joetzel@unm.edu

Goal:

To address health disparities, especially culturally-based disparities, with an end goal of improved health and equal access for all groups.

Health Communication Interests:

• Community-based participatory research
• Developing and evaluating health and social justice initiatives

Current and Pending Health Communication Projects:

• Preventing American Indian adolescent substance use through peer-developed and peer-implemented health communication campaigns
• Mental health and stigma campaign

• Evaluating the effectiveness of a health campaign designed to enhance understanding of the neuroscience of drug use

AUDREY RIFFENBURGH

Doctoral student (and consultant in health literacy/plain language)

ar@plainlanguageworks.com

Goal:

To address the mismatch between the health literacy skills of U.S. adults and the health literacy demands of attaining vibrant health. To address ways to increase the use of plain language in health communication.

Health Communication Interests:

§ Usability and readability of health information on the Internet

§ The application of plain language to create clear health communication

§ Strategies to communicate to providers, insurers, researchers, and others, the critical need for clearer health communication, especially in light of the increasing incidence of chronic diseases and the move toward more self-management of those diseases

§ Helping adults with limited literacy skills educate health care providers about their health information needs and abilities

Current and Pending Health Communication Projects

§ Creating 20 easy-to-read parent handouts for inclusion in a guidebook for pediatricians being developed by American Academy of Pediatrics

§ Consulting and technical assistance to a health publisher in an initiative to turn their products into plain language documents and to have plain language become their special niche

§ Developing strategies to communicate the results of recent research on family acceptance/rejection to families of LGBT youth

SEAN SOLOWIEJ

Department technology advisor

solowiej@unm.edu

Goal:

To develop technological resources for disseminating health messages and interacting with underrepresented and marginalized populations

Health Communication Interests:

• Computer mediated communication
• Video production

Current and Pending Health Communication Projects:

• New methods of outreach for interacting with communities

DIVYA SREENIVAS

Doctoral Student

divyas@unm.edu

Goal: To use theoretically grounded approaches in identifying communities’ health needs and to develop and implement health promotion interventions.

Health Communication Interests:

• Community-based participatory approaches
• Needs assessment and evaluation research
• Health Communication campaigns

Current and Pending Health Communication Projects:

• Analyzing narrative content of Edutainment productions using textual analysis and conducting focus groups among select South Asians
• Using an interpretive approach to understand barriers to addictions treatment among select Native Americans
• A Quantitative analysis of the role of spirituality in recovery from substance use disorders for select Native Americans
• Using triangulation to conduct nutritional needs assessment in a low-income Hispanic community to prevent obesity

OLAF WERDER

Assistant professor

owerder@unm.edu

Goal:

To analyze health messages and behavior patterns of various target groups related to obesity and diabetes prevention with an end goal of improved social marketing communication to facilitate actual healthy lifestyle behavioral changes.

Health Communication Interests:

• Social advertising/ mass mediated communication
• Event and participation driven activities
• Response behavior analysis (using transtheoretic and related models)

Current and Pending Health Communication Projects:

• Comparative global campaign analysis
• Obesity prevention community campaigns toward ethnic and rural populations
• Cooperative activities with RIOS Net (UNMHSC), Healthy Living Action Groups, and New Mexico Department of Health

• Evaluating the effectiveness of a health campaign designed to enhance understanding of the neuroscience of drug use

LYNN WALTERS

Doctoral student

walters@osogrande.com

Goal:

To address dietary attitudes and behaviors among children, youth, and families

Health Communication Interests:

• Community-based participatory research
• Diffusion of innovations
• Developing and evaluating health promotion programs

Current and Pending Health Communication Projects

• Four-year research and extension project, Cooking with Kids: Integrating Classroom, Cafeteria and Family Experiences
• Development of Farmer posters for school cafeterias as a means of promoting healthful foods and rural economic development

W. GILL WOODALLAssociate Professor – C&J, Senior Scientist, Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse, and Addictions (CASAA-UNM)

gwoodall@unm.edu

Goal:

To understand how technology influences the success of health risk prevention programs, particularly among adolescents and young adults; To examine a variety of intervention and policy innovations that could reduce Driving While Intoxicated events; To develop technology-driven interventions that would impact diet, cancer prevention, obesity and diabetes among underserved minority populations in New Mexico

Health Communication Interests:

• Driving while intoxicated prevention
• Responsible beverage service research
• Internet approaches to prevention interventions

Current and Pending Health Communication Projects:

• Develop and test an interactive website, based on Motivational Interviewing and Normative Perception Correction principles, to reduce and prevent risky alcohol consumption among college students.
• Develop a web-based Responsible Beverage Service Training website and associated management implementation website, and examine the efficacy of these websites in a randomized field trial of on-premise alcohol service sites.

• Develop a specialized web-based training for off-premise package liquor salespeople with the aim to reduce package alcohol sales to intoxicated and underage patrons.
• Develop a website designed to reduce cannabis use and prescription drug abuse among freshman college students, and test the website in a randomized trial on two college campuses. Review results are anticipated in late October-early November 2006.
• Web-based substance abuse and STD/HIV prevention.

For a full list of completed and ongoing projects, please see my c.v. at either the C&J or CASAA homepage on the UNM website.