撰文者： 全球衛生碩士學位學程 范嘉栩同學
2024年12月3日，「健康傳播不平等的跨學科研究」課程有幸邀請到美國國家癌症研究所（NCI）行為研究計畫（BRP）下的健康傳播與資訊學研究部（HCIRB）計畫主任Dr. Wen-Ying Chou，為我們帶來一場以「跨領域健康傳播研究」為主題的精彩演講。Chou博士的研究興趣涵蓋社交媒體、健康錯誤資訊、健康素養及末期癌症護理等領域。作為一名社會語言學家，她在健康照護與線上互動的質性與混合方法分析方面具有深厚的專業知識。目前正致力於數項關於社交媒體及物質濫用與成癮的研究資助計畫。
此次演講旨在提供一個關於健康傳播的廣泛概覽。Chou博士將健康傳播定義為一種藝術和技術，旨在傳遞、影響和激勵個人、機構及公眾關注重要健康議題，確保所有人無論其社會經濟狀況、年齡或地理位置，都能及時獲得高品質、準確且易於理解的健康資訊。
Chou博士在演講中分享了六個過去研究項目的多樣性與方法論，展示了健康傳播實證研究的多種研究途徑。她的研究範圍廣泛，包含但不限於：針對社交媒體使用與訪問的橫斷面調查、癌症生還者與YouTube內容的分析、癌症臨床試驗團隊成員視角的關鍵資訊訪談、使用眼動追蹤方法研究社交媒體資訊的導航與處理、進行關於COVID-19謠言的敘事研究網路實驗，以及對減少錯誤資訊進行範圍性回顧等。這些研究方法涵蓋了健康傳播領域的各個面向，並強調了跨領域合作在減少健康誤導與建立信任關係中的重要性。
在今天的演講中，Chou博士進一步強調了跨領域健康傳播研究的重要性，特別是在當前這個充滿挑戰的時代。隨著科技與社交媒體的發展，健康資訊的獲取與傳播方式日益多樣化，但也因此容易產生誤導與不實資訊。透過這些研究，Chou博士希望能夠增進人們對健康資訊的理解，並且改善大眾對健康問題的反應與行為，從而促進更加人性化和以關係為中心的健康交流模式。
總結來說，Chou博士的演講不僅讓聽者對健康傳播的廣度與深度有了更加全面的認識，也加深了觀眾對於如何通過跨領域的研究合作來減少健康領域中的不信任與錯誤資訊的理解。相信在未來的健康傳播實踐中，Chou博士的研究將能夠為建立更健康的資訊生態提供寶貴的參考與啟發。
Title: Multi-Disciplinary Research Into Health Communication
Dr. Wen-Ying Sylvia Chou is a Program Director in the Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch (HCIRB) of the Behavioral Research Program (BRP) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Division of Cancer Control and Population Science in the United States National Institute of Health (NIH). Dr. Chou’s research interests focus on social media, health misinformation, health literacy, and end-of-life cancer care. Trained as a sociolinguist, she has expertise in qualitative and mixed-methods analyses of health care and online interactions. Currently, she is working on funding initiatives targeting social media and substance use and addiction.
Today’s talk aimed to provide a broad overview of health communication. Dr. Chou defines health communications as the art and technique of information, influencing, and motivating individuals, institutional, and public audiences about important health issues with the goal of allowing timely access to high-quality, accurate, and understandable health information to all people, regardless of their socioeconomic status, age, and geographical location. Dr. Chou provided a sample of diverse approaches to empirical health communication research by sharing the diverse topics and methodologies of six of her prior projects. Her research includes but is not limited to cross-sectional surveys examining social media access and use, content analysis of cancer survivorship and YouTube, key informant interviews examining the perspectives of cancer clinical trial team members, eye-tracking methodology targeting navigation and processing of social media information, web-based experiments focused on covid myths narrative study, and scoping review on mitigating misinformation. Through today’s talk, Dr. Chou provided an overview of the health communication field's breadth and depth and emphasized the importance of conducting multidisciplinary research to foster relationship-centered communication and reduce distrust and health misinformation in health communication.
