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Nudging has been discussed in the context of public health, and ethical issues raised by nudging in public health contexts have been highlighted. In this article, we first identify types of nudging approaches and techniques that have been used in screening programmes, and ethical issues that have been associated with nudging: paternalism, limited autonomy and manipulation. We then identify nudging techniques used in a pamphlet developed for the Danish National Screening Program for Colorectal Cancer. These include framing, default nudge, use of hassle bias, authority nudge and priming. The pamphlet and the very offering of a screening programme can in themselves be considered nudges. Whether nudging strategies are ethically problematic depend on whether they are categorized as educative- or non-educative nudges. Educative nudges seek to affect people's choice making by engaging their reflective capabilities. Non-educative nudges work by circumventing people's reflective capabilities. Information materials are, on the face of it, meant to engage citizens' reflective capacities. Recipients are likely to receive information materials with this expectation, and thus not expect to be affected in other ways. Non-educative nudges may therefore be particularly problematic in the context of information on screening, also as participating in screening does not always benefit the individual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Violence against women constitutes a significant public health problem affecting an estimated 35% of women worldwide (WHO, 2013); the scale of the problem and its ongoing intransigence indicate the need for critical and transformative approaches that confront the cultures that support gender violence and lead to change. The present paper analyses a program run in Scottish primary schools for 10–12 year olds called RESPECT that was successful in making pupils alert to and critical of gendering norms and practices. Analysis reveals that the teaching plans and activities of RESPECT are highly consistent with a critical pedagogical approach (Freire, 2005 ; Matthews, 2014), and indicates the value of combining the theoretical approaches of critical pedagogy, feminism and critical health literacy in public health campaign materials aimed at challenging the cultural bases of gender violence in ways that promote health in an educational setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In hegemonic risk discourses, hospital obstetric units are represented as the safest and best birth settings; however, a minority of women in England and Wales (2.3% in 2014) still opt for home birth. In this article, I analyse pro-home birth discourses on a UK-based online discussion group for pregnant women covering the period 2010–2015 and collected in March 2016, to identify how individuals making pro-home birth posts on the site represented home birth as a morally responsible choice. Using Foucauldian discourse analysis, I identify three main themes: home births as a normal process, representing an intimate, existential life moment which meets women’s needs for care and personal autonomy, and is convenient and relatively safe, in contrast to hospital births which are characterised as risky; home births as morally legitimate and justified by discourses of evidence-based risk assessment, woman centredness and empowerment; and home birth as not risky and the mothers who opt for it were not taking unnecessary risks but were acting responsibly. In this article, I examine the ways in which the online setting can be used to resist dominant risk discourses. I show how the participants in the online discussion group in my study used available discursive resources to challenge hegemonic risk discourses regarding birth setting, making resistance to dominant risk discourses possible, as pro-home birth discourses legitimised ‘nonconformist’ decisions regarding birth setting. The focus on the ‘risk-takers’ in this article is valuable for healthcare practitioners seeking to improve their communication about birth setting choices with pregnant women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Email communication is being integrated relatively slowly into doctor-patient communication. Patients have expressed enthusiasm for the medium, while doctors are generally more reluctant. As existing health communication models have characteristically assumed the copresence of doctor and patient and primarily reflect medical practitioners' perspectives, their suitability in relation to email communication and patients' perspectives warrants further investigation. Following a two-step process and using the methodology of the integrative literature review, 29 articles from 2004-2014 are analysed with the aim of investigating the advantages and disadvantages of the medium of email from the patient's perspective. The findings are compared to the health communication models of biomedicine, patient-centeredness, patient education and patient empowerment to investigate these models' relevance for doctor-patient email communication. Results show that patients identify numerous advantages with email communication, including improved convenience and access, more detailed informational exchanges, greater reflection opportunities, freedom from the medical gaze and the potential to level out power imbalances, as well as a number of primarily medium-related disadvantages. The findings indicate that email can counteract some of the communicative problems associated with biomedicine and suggest the ongoing relevance of aspects of the models of patient empowerment, patient-centeredness and patient education for email communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]