Since early in the pandemic, Republicans and Democrats have exhibited different attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors toward the COVID-19 pandemic. These beliefs have even translated into divergent mortality, with a study released last week showing that after vaccinations became widely available, Republicans had higher death rates than Democrats.

Such a strategy has broader implications for public health In the wake of the Dobbs Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade abortion rights, messaging in political campaign ads for the 2022 midterm elections has featured abortion prominently, especially in pro-Democratic messaging.

Our team, led by Margaret Tait, recently published the results of a study exploring public service announcements (PSAs) sponsored by the federal government and airing on TV during the early months of the pandemic, from March through December of 2020. The study is available open access in Preventive Medicine Reports. 

By Jim Hanchett, Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy Citing the urgent need for more effective and equitable health communication, three universities are collaborating on a unique research endeavor that will quickly identify developing public health issues, address conflicting messages and counter misinformation, funded with a...

Our team recently published the results of a study exploring local TV news coverage of racial disparities in COVID-19 during the first wave of the pandemic in Race and Social Problems (https://doi.org/10.1007/s12552-022-09372-5). This study examined how local TV news stories attributed causes and solutions for COVID-19-related racial health and...

On December 2 and December 10, 2021, our team convened audiences of journalists, communication professionals, researchers and advocates to learn about and discuss research findings. On December 2, the team led a discussion on Storytelling and the Social Safety Net, while the session on December 10 focused on Communicating about Race, Class, and...

In a recently published study in The International Journal of Press/Politics, our team of researchers, led by Jiawei Liu, examined the content of political campaign ads about crime during the 2016 U.S. election cycle, and the consequences of cumulative exposure to political campaign ads about crime on crime worry.

By Tom Fleischman How do you capture hearts and minds when it comes to increasing public support for policies and programs related to early childhood education? According to new multi-institution research led by Jeff Niederdeppe, professor in the Department of Communication in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell...

Our team, led by Margaret Tait, recently published the results of a study exploring local television news coverage related to paid family leave policy in SSM-Population Health. A team of trained coders conducted a content analysis of relevant local news stories airing in 2018 and 2019 on the four major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX) in all...

On January 15, 2020, the COMM HSP team convened an invitation-only research workshop called “Synthesizing Knowledge and Gaps in Research to Inform Communication Strategies in Building a Culture of Health”, held at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.