In a current project, we are working to map the prevalence of health-related news in Merced County, a culturally diverse rural California county characterized by extremely high levels of poverty, unemployment, and low educational attainment. Results so far demonstrate a limited information environment, and further suggest there is minimal actionable health information in local newspapers.
The Hellman Family Faculty Fellowship will allow us to extend preliminary work to map the complete current health information environment, including news, entertainment, social media, and community storytelling networks, with the ultimate goal of developing an intervention that will improve both the quantity of health information available and the quality (usability) of that information. This project borrows heavily from Communication Infrastructure Theory, developed by Dr. Sandra Ball-Rokeach at the Annenberg School for Communication of the University of Southern California.