Research Methods in Health Communication ─ Principles and Application

This volume provides an essential roster of primary research methods as they apply to health communication inquiry. Editor Bryan B. Whaley brings together key health communication researchers to write about their primary methodological areas. Their chapters offer guidance and insights for a variety of approaches to answering research questions. The methods included here cover:

• Exploration and Description: interview/focus groups, case study, ethnography, and surveys;
• Examining Messages and Interpersonal Exchanges: narrative analysis, conversational analysis, analyzing physician-patient interactions, social network analysis, and content analysis;
• Causal Explication: experimental research, meta-analysis, and meta-synthesis; and
• Cultural, Population, and Critical Concerns: rhetorical methods and criticism, and methodological issues when investigating stigmatized populations, and groups with health disparities.

Chapters cite or use examples from allied health areas -- nursing, public health, sociology, medicine -- to demonstrate the breadth of health communication studies.

This work highlights the importance of methodology in health communication research in multiple contexts. Developed to provide a fundamental reference for investigating health communication, this volume will serve as an invaluable tool for researchers and students across the social science and health disciplines.

Bryan B. Whaley (Ph.D., Purdue University) is Professor of Communication, and Clinical Research Associate in the School of Nursing and Health Professions at University of San Francisco. His research concerns linguistic factors related to explaining illness and complex health-related information, the function and design of interpersonal messages to patients, and language/message variables in social influence.