Learn More About Health Communication

Jackson, L. D., & Duffy B. K. (1998). Health communication research: A guide to developments and directions. Westport, CT: Greenwood.

This book is best for advanced readers and is an excellent state of the art review of research in health communication generally. The topics include mediated health campaigns, doctor-patient communication, organizational issues, and medical education. For those interested in mass mediated issues associate with dissemination of health information, go directly to the last two chapters. Lapinski & Witte’s chapter focuses specifically on theoretical issues associate with planning and executing health communication campaigns. Signorielli’s chapter is a nice treatment on how health images on television affect consumers views and attitudes toward health professionals, their status in our culture, and communication with them.

Jones, J. A., Kreps, G. L., & Phillips, G. M. (1995). Communicating with your doctor: Getting the most out of health care. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

This source is highly recommended for those interested in just starting out in studying health communication, especially those interested in improving their doctor-patient communication. This book is written for the average reader and will help also with technical terms frequently used by physicians and other medical professionals. It is written in a moderately academic style.

Korsch, B. M. (1997). The intelligent patient’s guide to the doctor-patient relationship: Learning to talk so your doctor will listen. New York: Oxford University Press.

This book is similar to the Jones et al. source. It is somewhat more up to date and includes more analysis of specific communication problems that occur between patients and their physicians. This would be a good follow-up to the Jones et al. book, or it can be used on it’s own. This book is also very helpful for navigating the bureaucracy of health care systems. This book is written for the average reader and uses little to no academic prose.

Kreps, G. L. & Kunimoto, E. N. (1994). Effective communication in multicultural health care settings. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

The articles in this book are designed to help the reader communicate more effectively in health care given cultural differences in language and customs. The book is useful for those interested in developing multicultural awareness and improving ones communication skills, as well as anyone who works or anticipates working in a multicultural setting.

Kreps, G. L. & Thornton, B. C. (1984). Health communication: Theory and practice. New York: Longman.

This is a textbook that can be used in a health communication course at any level. It reviews all the various components that are important to understanding the health communication system. It is fairly outdated in terms of the research, but the general concepts reviewed are staple issues still covered in courses today.

Maibach, E., & Parrott, R. L. (Eds.) (1995). Designing health messages: Approaches from communication theory and public health practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

This is a wonderfully practical book for this interested in designing and creating effective health communication messages, campaigns, and presentations. While some may find the theoretical chapters not useful, there are others that provide concrete descriptions of how to design, test, and evaluate health messages, mostly in health campaigns.

Ray, E. B, & Donohew, L. (1990). Communication and health: Systems and applications. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Similar to the Kreps and Thornton book, this sources deals directly with health communication as a system. Chapters revolve around the various system components including interpersonal relationships, organizational and small group components, and mass mediated health issues. Each chapter is written by well-known scholars in the field. This book is good for any level of course involving health communication. Some chapters involve reporting results from quantitative studies and will need some explanation and interpretation for some people. Additionally, the material is outdated but include some very ground breaking studies.

Ray, E. B. (1993). Case studies in health communication. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

This source is an excellent secondary book for any health communication course, or the average reader who wants to read stories about people’s experiences in health care delivery. Each chapter is written by a different author and involves case studies of people as they encounter various situations regarding their health. For those wanting to see real life people in real life health situations, this book is a great source for seeing theoretical concepts in action.

Roter, D. L. & Hall, J. A. (1992). Doctors talking with patients/patients talking with doctors: Improving communication in medical visits. Westport, CT: Auburn House.

This is written from an academic perspective and reports on the research conducted by the two authors, Debra Roter and Judith Hall. These two scholars are at the top of the field when it comes to examining actual communicative processes in the doctor-patient interaction. Consulting this book will help illuminate very specific communicative problems that doctors and their patients face when interacting in medical interviews. The research reported here is very insightful and relevant to people needing information on how to be a more effective communicator.

Thompson, T. L. (1988). Communication for health care professionals: A relational perspective. Lanham, MD: University of Press America.

While this book is out of date regarding current research, it is an excellent source for both medical professionals and medical consumers. Written from a relational perspective, every conceivable interpersonal communication issue is dealt with in this book. The writing is very conversational in nature and deals with very real issues that both medical professionals and patients must face in order to have more satisfying communication experiences. This is highly recommended as an introductory book to interpersonal issues in health care.

Whaley, B. B. (Ed.) (2000). Explaining illness: Research, theory, and strategies. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associate.

This recently published edited volume is collection of articles dealing specifically with how medical professionals of all types go about explaining illness to their clients. There are chapters devoted to theoretical explanations for how care providers can deal with explaining illness. However, the majority of the book focuses specifically on targeted populations and their needs for having their illness conditions explained in understandable way. This book will be useful for health care providers seeking new ways to approach their patients in terms of explaining bad news or how to cope with an illness. Students specifically may benefit from this book in terms of seeing the communicative processes from various theoretical and research issues.