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\"Health and Medical Public Relations takes a fresh look at media relations and news values. It examines how information about medical research from the academic, pharmaceutical and charitable sectors is disseminated to target audiences through a variety of PR techniques. Scrutinising a wide range of health-related public relations activities, the book combines a critical, analytical and cultural overview of these methods with helpful guidance on their practical application\"--Provided by publisher.

In this paper, I elaborate a theoretical model of how individuals come to make or create sense through their language while being accountable to others. Using accounts of corporate communication professionals who made sense of anomalous circumstances, I analyze how they used metaphorical words and expressions to organize their accounts and to negotiate between their own individual commitments and perceived social expectations. Based on the analysis, I induce that professionals (a) use individual metaphors to align themselves with the expectations of others and to mark particular roles for themselves that strictly meet those expectations (“strategic shifting”) when they perceive the social approval motive as strong; (b) engage in the extended use of a single metaphor to compress a situation into a frame that mediates between individual convictions and others' expectations (“framing”) when they know the views of others but are also strongly motivated to think through a circumstance as part of their professional role or previous commitments; and (c) systematically use a combination of metaphors that are blended and elaborated into a plausible narrative that attributes responsibility and prescribes a course of action (“narration”) when they are in a position (as part of their role) to define a circumstance, are unconstrained by past experiences, and do not directly know the views of others. This model integrates findings from prior research and combines the influence of role-related commitments and social accountability pressures on sensemaking.

This paper explores the challenges of creating and maintaining trust in a global virtual team whose members transcend time, space, and culture. The challenges are highlighted by integrating recent literature on work teams, computer-mediated communication groups, cross-cultural communication, and interpersonal and organizational trust. To explore these challenges empirically, we report on a series of descriptive case studies on global virtual teams whose members were separated by location and culture, were challenged by a common collaborative project, and for whom the only economically and practically viable communication medium was asynchronous and synchronous computer-mediated communication. The results suggest that global virtual teams may experience a form of \"swift\" trust, but such trust appears to be very fragile and temporal. The study raises a number of issues to be explored and debated by future research. Pragmatically, the study describes communication behaviors that might facilitate trust in global virtual teams.

Background: Patients vary in their willingness and ability to actively participate in medical consultations. Because more active patient participation contributes to improved health outcomes and quality of care, it is important to understand factors affecting the way patients communicate with healthcare providers. Objectives: The objectives of this study were to examine the extent to which patient participation in medical interactions is influenced by 1) the patient's personal characteristics (age, gender, education, ethnicity); 2) the physician's communication style (eg, use of partnership-building and supportive talk); and 3) the clinical setting (eg, the health condition, medical specialty). Research Design and Subjects: The authors conducted a post hoc cross-sectional analysis of 279 physician-patient interactions from 3 clinical sites: 1) primary care patients in Sacramento, California, 2) patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) from the San Francisco Bay area, and 3) patients with lung cancer from a VA hospital in Texas. Main Outcome Measures: The outcome measures included the degree to which patients asked questions, were assertive, and expressed concerns and the degree to which physicians used partnership-building and supportive talk (praise, reassurance, empathy) in their consultations. Results: The majority of active participation behaviors were patientinitiated (84%) rather than prompted by physician partnershipbuilding or supportive talk. Patients who were more active participants received more facilitative communication from physicians, were more educated, and were more likely to be white than of another ethnicity. Women more willingly expressed negative feelings and concerns. There was considerable variability in patient participation across the 3 clinical settings. Female physicians were more likely to use supportive talk than males, and physicians generally used less supportive talk with nonwhite compared with white patients. Conclusions: Patient participation in medical encounters depends on a complex interplay of personal, physician, and contextual factors. Although more educated and white patients tended to be more active participants than their counterparts, the strongest predictors of patient participation were situation-specific, namely the clinical setting and the physician's communicative style. Physicians could more effectively facilitate patient involvement by more frequently using partnership-building and supportive communication. Future research should investigate how the nuances of individual clinical settings (eg, the health condition, time allotted for the visit) impose constraints or opportunities for more effective patient involvement in care.

BackgroundRegular mammogram screening for eligible average risk women has been associated with early detection and reduction of cancer morbidity and mortality. Delayed follow-up and resolution of abnormal mammograms limit early detection efforts and can cause psychological distress and anxiety.ObjectiveThe goal of this study was to gain insight from women’s narratives into how organizational factors related to communication and coordination of care facilitate or hinder timely follow-up for abnormal mammogram results.DesignWe conducted 61 qualitative in-person interviews with women from four race-ethnic groups (African American, Chinese, Latina, and White) in three different healthcare settings (academic, community, and safety-net).ParticipantsEligible participants had an abnormal mammogram result requiring breast biopsy documented in the San Francisco Mammography Registry in the previous year.ApproachInterview narratives included reflections on experience and suggested improvements to communication and follow-up processes. A grounded theory approach was used to identify themes across interviews.Key ResultsParticipants’ experiences of follow-up and diagnosis depended largely on communication processes. Twenty-one participants experienced a follow-up delay (> 30 days between index mammogram and biopsy). Organizational factors, which varied across different institutions, played key roles in effective communication which included (a) direct verbal communication with the ability to ask questions, (b) explanation of medical processes and terminology avoiding jargon, and (c) use of interpretation services for women with limited English proficiency.ConclusionHealth organizations varied in their processes for abnormal results communication and availability of support staff and interpretation services. Women who received care from institutions with more robust support staff, such as bilingual navigators, more often than not reported understanding their results and timely abnormal mammogram follow-up. These reports were consistent across women from diverse ethnic groups and suggest the value of organizational support services between an abnormal mammogram and resolution for improving follow-up times and minimizing patient distress.

We show that sellers may earn a reputation for their \"ability\" to deliver high-quality goods on average by honestly announcing the realized quality of items for sale every period. As the expected revenue stream from continuing with honest communication increases with their ability, high-ability sellers remain honest while low-ability sellers find it too costly and sometimes lie about quality for short-term gain. Thus, cheap-talk communication facilitates the market's learning of a seller's ability and strengthens reputation effects. We study this new reputation mechanism and the induced market dynamics, first when sellers cannot restart with a new identity and second when they can. We extend the analysis to various other situations such as voluntary refund and moral hazard.

Repeated exposure to a stimulus facilitates its processing. This is reflected in faster and more accurate identification, reduced perceptual identification thresholds, and more efficient classifications for repeated compared with novel items. Here, we test a hypothesis that this experience-based behavioral facilitation is a result of enhanced communication between distinct cortical regions, which reduces local processing demands. A magnetoencephalographic investigation revealed that repeated object classification led to decreased neural responses in the prefrontal cortex and temporal cortex. Critically, this decrease in absolute activity was accompanied by greater neural synchrony (a measure of functional connectivity) between these regions with repetition. Additionally, the onset of the enhanced interregional synchrony predicted the degree of behavioral facilitation. These findings suggest that object repetition results in enhanced interactions between brain regions, which facilitates performance and reduces processing demands on the regions involved.

Facilitated modelling is used in supporting the resolution of strategic issues mainly because it is expected to improve communication between decision makers, foster consensus and create commitment. Researchers in both the strategy and facilitated modelling fields call for more systematic research on how strategy development works in practice and how outcomes are created. In this paper, three facilitated modelling cases on strategic issues are studied using both written questionnaires, developed in the strategy and decision support fields, and semi-structured interviews. Results of both measurement approaches are compared to determine (a) to what extent outcomes in participants' own terms are similar to concepts in the questionnaire and (b) whether changes measured by both methods are similar. Interview results are used to assess (c) which elements of the intervention contribute to outcomes. Findings suggest that questionnaires offer clear benefits as standardized measurement of facilitated modelling outcomes.

The purpose of this study was to examine family communication within the core and balance model of family leisure functioning. The study was conducted from a youth perspective of family leisure and family functioning. The sample consisted of youth (N = 95) aged 11-17 from 25 different states in the United States. Path analyses indicated that family communication mediated a positive relationship between family leisure variables and family functioning variables. Implications and recommendations are discussed. The addition of communication in the Core and Balance Model is recommended.