We have been awarded a Hellman Family Faculty Fellowship to expand our research on mapping the health information networks in a rural region. The project addresses information disparities in the rural and impoverished San Joaquin Valley of California, and is grounded in the idea that information disparities are important contributors to health disparities. The public information environment is an important determinant of health, and the mass media are especially critical sources for information dissemination in rural regions with geographically-dispersed populations that are harder to reach with other channels. However, the unequal, socially patterned distribution of health information is compounded in rural regions that face multiple barriers to health, contributing to rather than eliminating disparities.
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.
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.
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