The state of health communication research: A content analysis of articles published in Journal of Health Communication and Health Communication (2010-2019)

Abstract

This study presents data from a content analysis of original research articles published in Journal of Health Communication (JOHC) andHealth Communication (HC) from 2010 to 2019. The authors coded 2,050 articles using categories that identified health topics, theory, population characteristics, and methods used in each study. Distinctions between the published research in JOHCand HCare highlighted. Across both journals, articles are primarily conducted within the United States, most frequently use college student samples, often lack explicit theoretical frameworks, heavily rely on online survey methods, and most commonly use quantitative methodologies. The most frequently utilized theory across both journals wasSocial Cognitive Theory and the most studied health topic were behaviors related to smoking, tobacco, and e-cigarette use. The journals were significantly different in several areas, with HC containing more articles explicitly guided by theory and publishing more qualitative research, while JOHC had more racial diversity in its study samples. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for future research. Increased diversity in methodology and samples, as well as increased use of theory and continued use of interdisciplinary collaborations among researchers will allow for expanding and enhancing health communication knowledge going forward.

Notes

¹ A communication-affiliation was only designated if an individual was affiliated with an academic communication department. Authors affiliated with non-academic communication organizations were coded as “Other.”

² We are specifically interested in whether studies utilized a sample population drawn from MTurk because of ethical concerns (Fort, Adda, & Cohen, 2011) and data quality issues (Chmielewski & Kucker, 2020) that have been raised about the crowdsourcing tool.

³ Due to many health topics not having adequate representation between journals and over time, these analyses were restricted to only the thirty most prevalently studied health topics (see Table 4).