Eastern and Western medical knowledge can inform each other in the treatment of people in Asia across a wide range of health issues. A new book, Expanding Horizons in Health Communication: An Asian Perspective, brings together health communication scholars from diverse disciplines to present an innovative investigation of Eastern and Western perspectives on healthcare.

The book is the result of a partnership between the International Research Centre for the Advancement of Health Communication (IRCAHC) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and the STEM Translational Communication Center (STCC) at the University of Florida. Dr. Bernadette Watson, director of the IRCAHC, and Dr. Janice Krieger, director of the STEM Center, edited the publication.

Public Relations Associate Professor Carma Bylund, UFCJC doctoral student Aantaki Raisa and Krieger contributed a chapter on “A Systematic Scoping Review of Cancer Communication About Prevention and Detection in Bangladesh.”

The book is the first of its kind in that it focuses exclusively on health communication research and clinical practice in Asia. The chapters present research from diverse geographic locations, methodologies, and theoretical frameworks to provide a portrait of the expanding horizons of healthcare in Asia. The authors use a range of analytic approaches that include traditional qualitative and quantitative methodologies, as well as cutting-edge computer diagnostics that digitally visualize health interactions across time.

“The goal of this book is to highlight the richness and diversity of health communication research and practice across the globe,” Krieger said. “The authors did an excellent job of describing the relationship between culture and communication practices to promote health and well-being. We hope this book will make a positive contribution to disseminating the vibrant health communication research being conducted in Asia.”

“It is marvelous to have this publication completed and it represents a significant contribution both to Asian health communication but also to the collaboration between our two universities,” Watson added.

Expanding Horizons in Health Communication covers topics concerned with a range of mental and physical health topics that are currently confronting China, Singapore, Bangladesh and Australia. Chapters include:

• Talking About Trauma in Migrant Worker Returnee Narratives: Mental Health Issues
• Prompting Strategies and Outcomes in Picture-Based Counseling
• Understanding the Perspectives of Counsellors and Clients in School-Based Counselling in Hong Kong
• What Happens to the Holistic Care of Patients in Busy Oncology Settings?
• Examining Patient Preferences for Integrative Chinese-Western Colorectal Cancer Care in Hong Kong
• Framing Boundaries of Medical Interactions: Data from China
• Understanding the Co-construction of Medical Consultations in Traditional Chinese Medicine: A Discourse Structural Analysis
• Instructions as Actions for Initiating Exercise Therapy in Physiotherapy in Hong Kong
• Shift-to-Shift Nursing Handovers at a Multi-cultural and Multi-lingual Tertiary Hospital in Singapore: An Observational Study
• Convincing a Skeptical Public: The Challenge for Public Health
• Assessment of Safety Culture: A Singapore Residential Aged Care Cross-Sectional Study
• A Systematic Scoping Review of Cancer Communication About Prevention and Detection in Bangladesh
• Visualizing Conversations in Health Care: Using Discursis to Compare Cantonese and English Data Sets

Chapters were reviewed by internationally recognized scholars affiliated with the IRCAHC and STCC, including Louise Cummings, Phoenix Lam, Dennis Tay, Margo Turnbull, Wendy Wong, Jordan Alpert, Margaret Pitts, Yulia Strekalova, Debbie Treise, Cindy Gallois, and Liz Jones.

Posted: July 9, 2020
Category: College News, Health Communication News, STEM Center News
Tagged as: Carma Bylund, Janice Krieger, STEM Translational Communication Center