CHRC Spotlight
Latest News
New CHRC Research About Predictors of COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation Beliefs Among Unvaccinated Black Americans
Health-related misinformation is a major threat to public health and particularly worrisome for populations experiencing health disparities. This study sets out to examine the prevalence, socio-psychological predictors, and consequences of beliefs in COVID-19 vaccine misinformation among unvaccinated Black Americans. We conducted an online national survey with Black Americans who had not been vaccinated against COVID-19 […]
CHRC Researchers Publish Meta-Analysis on Persuasive Effects of Temporal Framing in Health Messaging
This meta-analysis investigated the persuasive effects of temporal framing in health messaging. Our analysis included 39 message pairs from 22 studies in 20 articles (N = 4,998) that examined the effects of temporal framing (i.e. present-oriented messages vs. future-oriented messages) on attitudes, inten-tions, and behaviors in health contexts. We found that present-oriented messages were significantly […]
CHRC Director and Staff Co-Author Study with Faculty Across UMD on COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Among Black Americans
In this study we examine the role of moral values in predicting COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among Black Americans. Guided by moral foundations theory, we assess the associations between six moral foundations (care, fairness, loyalty, authority, purity, liberty) and attitudes and intentions toward COVID-19 vaccination. Results of a national survey of Black Americans (N = 1,497) […]
New Student Research on How News Affects Support for Climate Adaptation
News media are the public’s primary source about risks such as climate change, but traditional journalistic approaches to climate change have failed to build support for collective social responses. Solutions journalism, an emerging practice focused on credible stories about responses to societal problems, may offer an alternate approach. From an online experiment with a convenience […]
CHRC Director and Assistants Publish Systematic Review of Individual Differences in Susceptibility to Health Misinformation
Health misinformation poses a significant threat to public health. Understanding why people believe health misinformation and who is at risk is crucial for developing effective interventions to reduce the harmful impact of misinformation. We conducted a systematic review of published empirical research that examined individual differences in susceptibility to health misinformation, focusing on the psychological, […]
Watch Fall Virtual Seminar Series on Our YouTube Channel
The CHRC welcomed Dr. Angela Cooke-Jackson and Dr. Brian Southwell as its Fall 2022 Virtual Seminar Series speakers. Click here to see Dr. Cooke-Jackson’s talk, “Risk Communication: Engaging Community-Based Participatory Design Models to Increase Awareness and Partnerships within Underrepresented Black and Brown Communities,” which was on October 14. Dr. Southwell’s talk “Misinformation as a Societal Concern ” wasNovember […]
CHRC Assistants, Director, and Affiliate Faculty Publish Research on Black Americans’ COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance
Guided by the 5C (confidence, complacency, constraints, calculation, and collective responsibility) model of vaccination behavior, we examine the psychological antecedents of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance (i.e. attitudes and intentions toward COVID-19 vaccination) among Black Americans, a group disproportionately affected by the coronavirus pandemic. We conducted a national survey of Black Americans (N = 1,497) in February/March 2021. We found […]
CHRC Assistants and Director Author Chapter Defining Health Misinformation
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), we are entering an age of “infodemics,” with misinformation leading to mistrust in health authorities, increasing risk-taking behaviors, and undermining public health responses (WHO 2020). While concerns are rapidly growing about the prevalence and harmful impact of health misinformation (Nan, Wang, and Thier 2021), scholars have not clearly […]
Scoping Review of COVID-19 Health Communication Research Authored by CHRC Student and Director
This article reports a scoping review of emerging research on COVID-19 health communication. We reviewed and analyzed 206 articles published in 40 peer-reviewed communication journals between January 2020 to April 2021. Our review identified key study characteristics and overall themes and trends in this rapidly expanding field of research. Our review of health communication scholarship […]
CHRC Assistant Co-Authors Study About COVID-19 Vaccine Twitter Discourse
Wang, Y., & Chen, Y. (2022). Characterizing discourses about COVID-19 vaccines on Twitter: a topic modeling and sentiment analysis approach. Journal of Communication in Healthcare, 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1080/17538068.2022.2054196 Evidence-based health communication is crucial for facilitating vaccine-related knowledge and addressing vaccine hesitancy. To that end, it is important to understand the discourses about COVID-19 vaccination and attend […]