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A dark living room with a TV turned on to what looks like a news channel.
November 25, 2024
And its implications for future policy to promote population health

2024 was another record-breaking year of campaign spending, with campaigns reaching citizens through their television screens, mobile devices, online, in their mailboxes and via social media platforms in an effort to convey their policy achievements and future priorities and their opponent’s policies and priorities.

group of researchers at APHA
November 18, 2024

What a fantastic time we had at the APHA Conference in Minneapolis! Our week was filled with opportunities to connect, collaborate, and learn as we joined public health professionals from across the nation to explore pressing public health topics. Our team was excited to bring insights from our latest research, and it was even more inspiring to see the synergy created by each presentation, discussion, and exchange of ideas.

COMMhsp team members presenting partnered research with Center for Health Progress the Colorado Health Symposium
October 24, 2024

Since 2022, the COMM HSP team based at the University of Minnesota has been collaborating with Center for Health Progress (CHP) on an innovative community-based research partnership.

August 26, 2024

In mid-August, the Collaborative on Media & Messaging for Health and Social Policy team gathered for a full team meeting, hosted at Wesleyan University. This gathering provided a valuable opportunity to connect in person, brainstorm ideas, and set the stage for the work we’ll be undertaking this year.

hands holding paper speech bubbles
June 27, 2024

One of the key principles of community-engaged research is to involve communities in the process of asking research questions. Doing so enables the research to be more useful and practical in the real world, and also advances equity principles in the conduct of research by putting the affected communities closer to the center of the research process.

speech bubbles painted on wooden blocks
May 8, 2024

In a recent study published in Social Science & Medicine, Jiawei Liu and Jeff Niederdeppe examined studies about social comparison framing of health disparities.

Police car at night with city lights in the background
February 21, 2024

The political discourse surrounding identity is particularly heated in early 2024, as the United States lurches toward another momentous election. Between news coverage of ongoing political attacks on college campuses and corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion issues; persistent attention to the roles of antisemitism and Islamophobia inflaming domestic tensions surrounding the Middle East war; and the continued repercussions of abortion restrictions across states, issues of identity loom large. And, these issues–and how the political candidates position themselves in this context–will likely shape voters’ decisions in the ballot box this fall. 

February 20, 2024

It is now abundantly clear that Republicans and Democrats have divergent views about COVID-19 – as evidenced by partisan gaps in attitudes, beliefs, and even behaviors, like wearing masks or getting a vaccine. Research has also demonstrated that people perceive the concept of health equity through the lens of partisanship. In a new study published as part of a special issue about health policy and polarization in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, members of our COMM team presented 2023 survey data on public perceptions of health equity issues and discussed the implications of these findings for the future politics of public health.

Man sitting in waiting room
October 25, 2023

In a recent study published in Human Communication Research, Jiawei Liu and Jeff Niederdeppe examined the effects of public health messages that feature cancer risk comparisons and screening rate comparisons between Black Americans and White Americans.

graphic showing collaboration
September 8, 2023

The Collaborative on Media & Messaging for Health and Social Policy team gathered for a full team retreat in August, hosted at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

surgical masks in various colors
August 29, 2023

The Covid-19 pandemic posed a particularly difficult challenge for public health communicators because the information environment was rife with partisan cues and messaging that often contradicted or challenged the authority of scientific experts. The media played an ambiguous role in this regard: On the one hand, it served as a conduit for scientific advice to the public, on the other, it had the potential to disseminate and amplify misinformation.

top view of food items on a grey surface
August 28, 2023

Our COMM team had the opportunity to collaborate with the Berkeley Media Studies Group on an analysis of print and TV broadcast news stories about hunger and food assistance aired in 2021. This blog post was originally published on the BMSG website and examines how equity appeared in news about food assistance from 2021.

children in a classroom reading time
May 31, 2023

In April, President Biden signed an executive order that directed federal agencies to seek solutions to the persistent problems of early care and education (ECE) access and lack of affordability.  (ECE encompasses the settings where young children receive care from someone other than a family member or their primary caregiver.)

wooden blocks with letters that spell out "post covid"
May 9, 2023

On May 11, the national Public Health Emergency (PHE) declaration by the federal government will end. While this event has major public health implications, broader media and public attention to the event has been limited, likely because at least half of Americans earlier this spring reported that they believed that the pandemic was already over.

Box of food donations
May 9, 2023

Our COMM team had the opportunity to collaborate with the Berkeley Media Studies Group on an analysis of print and TV broadcast news stories about hunger and food assistance aired in 2021. This blog post was originally published on the BMSG website and offers reflections about the implications of the findings for advocates at the end of the COVID public health emergency. 

graphic of diverse people
April 27, 2023

By Tom Fleischman, Cornell Chronicle

In a review of more than three decades’ worth of studies that examine support for, or opposition to, policies with racial equity implications, a Cornell-led research group found that more research on messaging that includes the voices of historically marginalized people is necessary in the push toward equity.

two podiums one with red light and the other with blue light
February 22, 2023
And its implications for policy to promote population health

Campaign advertising – on television, online, through social media platforms, and even at the gas pump – remains a centrally important method through which candidates for office (and the groups that support them) convey to voters their policy accomplishments and priorities and those of their opponents.

black and white image of school lockers with shadows
February 21, 2023

By Steven Moore

Democrats and Republicans do not agree on much when it comes to politics. However, there does seem to be agreement from members of both parties that the country is on the wrong track, with a slim and broad majority of Democrats and Republicans, respectively, endorsing this idea.

Children playing in the sun
November 8, 2022

By Erika Franklin Fowler, Natália de Paula Moreira, and Jielu Yao

As the 2022 midterm elections race to their conclusion on Tuesday, there has been a lot of discussion about the content and issue focus of the ads flooding the airwaves, with abortion topping the list for Democrats while Republican messaging has closed with an emphasis on government spending, inflation, and economic concerns about cost of living.

Man holding vintage TV with COVID-19 text label
October 11, 2022

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.

Frame from KS abortion ad
October 5, 2022
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.

COVID-19 PSA
September 12, 2022

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

Image of collaborative messaging
August 4, 2022

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 newly announced $5 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Seamless pattern with people in protective masks. Protest during the pandemic, protests, African Americans and white people against racism. stock illustration
July 27, 2022

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 social disparities, and whether coverage of such disparities changed after George Floyd’s murder.

January 25, 2022

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 Health Equity.

September 10, 2021

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.

September 7, 2021

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 University, that all depends on whose hearts and minds are in the audience.

June 28, 2021

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 210 media markets in the U.S.

March 21, 2021

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.