COMM 5116 - Health, Communication, Culture

Meets with COMM 6116. Health and illness are as much cultural issues as they are biological phenomena. As such, communication plays a key role in our perceptions and practices around health. This course is designed to examine the relationships among health, culture, and communication, in four ways: (1) broad cultural assumptions and understandings of health and medicine, historically and today; (2) cultural differences in health communication, including and especially in provider-patient contexts; (3) mediated constructions of health, illness, and medicine; and (4) health campaigns and initiatives.