Mapping Health Communication Scholarship: Breadth, Depth, and Agenda of Published Research in Health Communication

Abstract

This study analyzed trends and patterns in the 22 years of research published in Health Communication. A content analysis of 642 articles examined the breadth and depth that Health Communication has achieved since its inception. Readers of Health Communication can thus see the history and scope of health communication as defined in the pages of this journal, and juxtapose this historical overview in the backdrop of the current scholarship that appears in the journal. We also identified some notable trends in research for the future development of the journal Health Communication specifically and the health communication discipline in general.

Notes

¹In some cases authors with multiple publications changed their fields or moved to other institutions in different countries. Author characteristics were coded as reflected in the published article at the time.

²Our content analysis and coding resulted in a total of 35 tables; we could not report all the tables because of space limitation. Authors will provide all the tables upon request to the first author,[email protected]

³The category “adults” consists of those adults who are not patients or health care providers.

⁴The list of first authors' countries were United States (581), Canada (13), Australia (10), Israel (5), China (4), Japan (4), Netherland (3), Taiwan (3), New Zealand (2), Finland (2), England (2), Germany (2), Switzerland (2), Belgium (1), South Africa (1), Korea (1), Sweden (1), India (1), Norway (1), Mexico (1), Kenya (1), and Singapore (1).

⁵This trend requires careful interpretation because some published work of United States-affiliated author(s) came from international projects in different regional and cultural settings. In addition, non-United States-born researchers, such as Chinese, Indian, or Korean scholars, are often affiliated with U.S. institutions.