Research
Our Research
Center for Health Communication scholars at the University of Delaware explore how communication can promote better health outcomes, strengthen relationships and shape public understanding. Research areas include the role of interpersonal communication in improving health, the impact of health issues on personal relationships, media effects, persuasive messaging and risk communication. Researchers investigate questions about the bidirectional influence of communication and health at multiple (i.e., micro and macro) levels, centering on the following:
- How individuals can communicate in ways that improve their relational, psychological and physical/physiological health.
- How health-related issues impact communication in relationships.
- How media affect health cognitions and behaviors.
- The development of persuasive health messaging.
- How to best communicate risk.
ICAMP
The Interpersonal Communications and Media Processes (ICAMP) is a research lab housed within the Department of Communication. ICAMP is an on-campus, state-of-the-art facility with spaces flexible enough to serve the research needs of multiple faculty and graduate students. The lab includes high-powered computers with modern gaming capabilities and eye tracking equipment, focus group space, a room dedicated to the collection of biological specimens, and a simulated living room environment.
For more information contact Morgan Ellithorpe, CHC associate director (mellitho@udel.edu).
Programming
Health & Media Summer Scholars Program (HMSS)
In a joint collaboration with the University of Southern California and Rutgers University, HMSS is a summer program designed for high school students to learn research skills and create their own public health messages as part of a research project. Students from both coasts will work with faculty to learn about communication science and persuasion and while using their creative talents to promote health behaviors among their peers.
CHC Scholars
The CHC Scholars program selects two communication undergraduate students each year to inform and participate in the Center activities. Students will be awarded a stipend each semester and will engage in a variety of experiences that will be tailored to the students’ interests and the Center needs. Some experiences might include public relations activities for CHC as well as research needs such as facilitating the SONA Community Panel and assisting with Center research projects (e.g., data collection).
Current Projects
Funding Agency
Agency: National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute: National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research
The goal of this NIH/NIDCR study is to identify factors that influence the behavior of adolescents to drink sports and energy drinks and to then change those beliefs to reduce consumption and improve adolescent health. This project includes a content analysis on sports and energy drink advertisements, a national survey of 503 youth ages 14–18 years old, a series of youth focus groups, and a Health & Media Summer Scholars program (HMSS). HMSS is a program designed for high school youth to train them on basic research skills and work with them to develop messages for youth about avoiding sports and energy drinks.
Funding Agency
Agency: National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute: National Institute on Aging
To improve clinical research about Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), it is necessary to increase the enrollment of adults in AD screenings in order to learn more about the disease and perceptions around it. Since most of the participants are female and non-minorities, research will be done to find ways to reach a more diverse group of participants. The goal of this NIH/NIA study is to understand how men and minorities specifically respond to certain information so recruitment registries can effectively communicate to this audience, with an overall goal is to increase diversity and participation in Alzheimer’s research.
Funding Agency
Agency: National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute: National Institute on Aging
This NIH/NIA study examines how the COVID information environment and perceptions of COVID-19 may affect: (1) COVID prevention behaviors, (2) attitudes towards medical research and (3) willingness to participate in scientific research in general and related to Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). The project includes a 12-month content analysis of new sources; a 2-wave only survey; and monthly online surveys among white, Black and Hispanic respondents.
Studies have shown that discrimination and hate speech against minority members of the LGBQ community can cause negative health effects. Social support from friends and family members has been proven to lessen these effects, but researchers wanted to know why. This project seeks to explain the importance of social connectivity in healthy LBGQ individuals, via biological reaction tests, measuring the frequency of health-related behaviors, and determining whether social support encourages individuals to seek out further support on their own.
Associate Professor John Crowley, recipient of a Faculty Diversity Research Fellowship from the Center for the Study of Diversity at the University of Delaware, states that the “goals of the fellowship are to deepen [his] knowledge of statistical analyses so that [he] can thoroughly analyze datasets from two research projects.”
Crowley seeks to help people cope with both explicit and implicit discrimination. With financial support, he’ll be better able to publish studies in top-ranking journals that will reach a wider range of scholars and audiences. Crowley’s hope is that these publications “will inspire other communication scholars to conduct similar research focused on understanding ways to help historically underrepresented populations.”
This NIH grant investigates the associations between covert (microaggressions) and overt discrimination and its links to immune dysregulation for Black adults. Specifically, a model that consider the pathways (both direct and direct) along which experiences with discrimination impact health and then the relational factors (e.g., social support) that may affect these associations is proposed.
This project examines links between oxytocin and relational outcomes, specifically with respect to sexual communication and forgiveness.
Unhealthy risk behaviors like premature sexual activity and alcohol use occur as early as adolescence and often in combination with one another. Research has shown that exposure to media content featuring portrayals of risk behaviors is a key influence on young adults’ performance of the same behaviors. This study uses an online experiment to test whether the age of the character portraying the behavior, and how viewers identify with them, is associated with attitudes towards and intention to engage in risk behaviors. Participants will view TV clips from two popular streaming shows, both featuring portrayals of alcohol use and sexual activity performed by characters of different ages, and attitudes and intention about using alcohol and combining sex and alcohol will be assessed post-exposure.
Binge watching television is both extremely common and commonly maligned. How bad is it, really? A series of studies has tested for moderating conditions and individual differences that predict when binge watching will be associated with poorer health and well-being outcomes, but also when it will be associated with positive outcomes like recovery from stress.
