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This essay discusses the growth and evolution of the journal for 37 years. Topics include the growth of the journal from publishing four issues a year to 14 issues, the author's planned resignation as editor-in-chief of the journal at the end of 2024, and important essays in the issue that are mere examples of the enormous impact of health communication scholarship on a global level.

The study and practice of health communication have never been confined to the classroom context, as health communication is inherently practice-oriented while being simultaneously based in theory. In this article, Teresa Thompson, editor of "Health Communication" journal for over 30 years, reflects on the interrelationships between communication and pedagogy. According to Thompson, the goal of all health communication research is educational, in that investigation should be focused on changing health related behaviors and communication within health care contexts. Thus, teaching and learning are foundational to health communication educators' work. Though she emphasizes that instructional communication does not occur exclusively within the classroom. There is much promise for collaborative studies focused in a variety of nonclassroom settings in upcoming research related to communication teaching, learning, and health.

One Health is a framework focusing on the dynamic intersections between humans, animals, and ecosystems regarding health systems and practices. As human decisions and actions are the locus of One Health challenges, it is critical to understand how people perceive and act on these connections. Fundamentally, the literature in this area is based in the natural and health sciences; further efforts are still necessary to fully realize the potential of bringing social research squarely into One Health. We suggest several areas of scholarship that could move this effort forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keywords: Narrative Medicine; Ethics; Doctor-Patient Interaction; Health Communication

My daughter was a normal, healthy young lady, looking forward to becoming a teenager. Then, a strange sensation appeared in the muscle of her upper arm and everything changed! She waged the toughest battle of her life, but died of cancer in the middle of her thirteenth year. How does a mother cope with so tragic a loss? I told and retold the story. I talked about how we faced the chemo, the pain, and the fear together, about the fun we had, about the impact on our family, about the final days on the wish trip, about her death, about her friends, about the support of our faith community. I shared with all who would listen and, gradually, the storytelling helped me to make sense of things, to cope with the gaping hole in my world, to find a new normal for myself, to move on. My daughter stills lives--in eternity, in my memory, in the life I live as a result of having been her mom for those thirteen and a half years, and in the stories--hers, mine, ours.

The rising number of cases of HIV, combined with the reality that young people are not abstaining from sex and that the HIV virus cannot penetrate an intact latex condom, leads to a need to investigate interpersonal strategies of negotiating condom use. Much of the past research on condom negotiation lacks a theoretical framework and has not focused on specific message characteristics that emerge during interaction. In light of the face threats inherent in condom negotiation, the present three-phase study was grounded in politeness theory. Responding to hypothetical scenarios in which power and social distance were manipulated, participants generated persuasive messages about condom use. Content analysis of these messages indicated that social distance and power did not influence politeness level of the message strategies. The final phase of the study determined that nonverbal messages and not engaging in the face-threatening act were seen as less instrumentally effective and socially appropriate, but more likely to preserve the relationship than any of the verbal message strategies. Failure to perform the face-threatening act posed the least threat to the requester's image, but the greatest threat to the requestee's image.

Patients who are HIV+ are often faced with the choice of whether or not they should tell their health care providers that they are HIV+. Although appropriate health care and safety require the communication of such information, the stigmatization associated with HIV puts at risk the patients' pride, dignity, and ultimately the quality of their health. Using Goffman's (1963, 1967) notions of face and stigma, the present study described the major influential factors prompting the act of disclosure of HIV, the act itself, and the effect that act appears to have had on the patient/provider relationship. Phase I of the study gathered pilot data through in-depth interviews, leading to a quantitative questionnaire used in Phase II. A sample was obtained through AIDS organizations around the U.S. and via electronic mail addresses for AIDS/HIV electronic discussion groups. The interviews and surveys asked respondents to recall a time when they had to make the decision to disclose or not disclose their HIV+ status to a care provider. The results indicated that patients typically did disclose their HIV+ status despite their strong feelings of stigmatization. Three key factors were related to their decisions: 1) perceived necessity of disclosure; 2) subjective feelings of comfort about the disclosure; and 3) perceptions of stigmatization. Patient satisfaction levels were also related to these factors. Implications for face maintenance and health care management as well as the determinants of subjective comfort are discussed.

The methods people use to discuss AIDS or the use of condoms and the impact of these methods were studied. Most respondents were willing to use condoms and reacted positively to the methods suggested. A few methods of instruction were used more commonly than others.

As more people choose to get health information online, health-related topics continue to be the target of misinformation. From targeted misinformation campaigns about the safety of tobacco, the mainstreaming and subsequent adoption of scientifically flawed research about vaccines, to the misinformation-driven stigmatization of HIV, health communication as an academic discipline has been faced with the challenge of stemming the flow of misinformation and correcting individuals' misinformed beliefs. To that end, scholars have devoted much time and effort to understand the antecedents and consequences of health-related misinformation, as well as strategies to correct misinformation and inoculate others from misinformation. In this essay, we review research on health-related misinformation, with a special emphasis on two major journals in the field, that is, Health Communication and the Journal of Health Communication, and interrogate the nature of health-related misinformation. We close this essay with a conceptualization of misinformed yet vocal health communicators, whom we term health misliterates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reveals that most parents say they see broadcast warning statements and are influenced by them in deciding about programs for their children. (FL)

Investigates concerns among both disabled and able-bodied individuals concerning helping behavior in three settings: a sheltered workshop, a social activity group, and a university. Finds that helping did not appear to be a serious problem, and proposes 17 tentative "rules" for helping the handicapped. (KEH)

Supports the proposition that orthopedically handicapped children are deficient in communication skills development. Increased contact with peers, through integrated classrooms, overcomes this deficiency to a certain degree. None of the children--handicapped or not, in integrated or in segregated classes--seem able to adapt their communication adequately to handicapped children. (PD)