Between the sea and the sky: A social practice investigation into health behaviours during cruise travel.

ISSUE ADDRESSED: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted organised cruise holidays as perfect incubators for microbiological infections due to the constant socialising within closed spaces. Little is known about people's health behaviours and perceptions during cruise holidays. METHODS: Narrative group interviews and respondent photo diary exercises were conducted with families (n = 25) residing in different areas across metropolitan NSW, Australia. Guided by a social practice theoretical approach we undertook a thematic analysis that identifies reasons for choosing a cruise, health considerations and behaviours in relation to cruise travel and awareness of official cruise health information. RESULTS: Cruise travel included a licence to abandon cautious behaviours, reinforced by confidence in the cruise organiser's risk management ability. Health concerns were not a high priority for participants and were mainly understood in terms of eating healthy, modest exercise, managing seasickness and having adequate supplies of medications. Awareness of official cruise health and risk information was largely non-existent. CONCLUSION: Understanding how travel health practices emerge and are likely to be modifiable produces health-promoting awareness and intervention efforts that recognise and link with people's ideas about cruise holidays as times of fun, leisure, relaxation, without interfering with or imposing on them. SO WHAT?: This study highlights the importance of developing health communication and promotion strategies that are responsive to the interconnected meanings, competencies and materials that have a bearing on how cruise travellers understand and enact health-related behaviours in preparation for and during a cruise holiday.

Communication's role in overcoming challenges for obesity prevention partnerships.

With obesity rates growing worldwide calls have increased to coordinate efforts in nationwide partnership models. Yet, the necessity for professional partnerships has brought into sharper focus a problem in jointly communicating obesity and its prevention. Following a social representation framework and using episodic interviewing of members from different professions directly or indirectly involved in obesity prevention, this report critically analysed concepts and communicative approaches held by those professional areas. Key findings included different perspectives about communication orientations, namely distribution of responsibility, control and communication goals. This suggests that the profession-specific world-views prevented respondents from communicating with members from other professions. We conclude that health communication experts bring unique skills to bring together professional teams to not only develop a common language and conceptual framework but also facilitate a sense of inclusion and personal accomplishment.

Toward a humanistic model in health communication.

Since the key to effective health communication lies in its ability to communicate well, some of its core problems are those that relate to the sharing of meaning between communicators. In elaborating on these problems, this paper offers two key propositions: one, health communication has to pass through the filter of a particular world view that creates a discrepancy between expected and actual message reception and response. Two, the assumption of a rational human actor made implicitly by most health psychological models is a contestable issue, as many times message recipients do not follow a cognitive judgment process. The phenomenon of resisting health messages by reasonable people asks the question whether we ought to rethink our adherence to a particular vision of human health as many times the adverse reaction to behaviour modification occurs as the result of a particular dialogical or discursive situation. At the same time, most motivational decisions in people's daily routines are automatic and use a concept known as self-identity to give stability to their behaviour patterns. Finally, health communication as part of organised government practices adheres to predominant value perspectives within health promotion practice that affect the manner in which health issues become problematised. This paper proposes a humanistic model that aims to pay attention to the intricacies of human communication by addressing all of the above problems in turn. It interprets the sharing of meaning element in human communication and addresses the question of how the idea of health is created through discourse. As such, it offers a complementary and constructive paradigm and set of approaches to understand health, its meanings and communication.

An adaptive CBPR approach to create weight management materials for a school-based health center intervention.

PURPOSE: From our previous clinical work with overweight/obese youth, we identified the need for research to create an effective weight management intervention to address the growing prevalence of adolescent metabolic syndrome. Formative assessment through an adaptive community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach was conducted toward the development of a nutritional and physical activity (DVD) and clinician toolkit for a school-based health center (SBHC) weight management intervention. METHODS: We first conducted parent and adolescent interviews on views and experiences about obesity while convening a community advisory council (CAC) recruited from two participating urban New Mexico high schools. Thematic findings from the interviews were analyzed with the CAC to develop culturally and developmentally appropriate intervention materials. RESULTS: Themes from the parent and adolescent interviews included general barriers/challenges, factors influencing motivation, and change facilitators. The CAC and university-based research team reached consensus on the final content of nutrition and physical activity topics to produce a DVD and clinician toolkit through six monthly sessions. These materials used in the SBHC intervention resulted in a greater reduction of body mass index when compared to adolescents receiving standard care. CONCLUSIONS: Formative assessment using an adaptive CBPR approach resulted in the creation of culturally and age appropriate weight reduction materials that were acceptable to study participants. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00841334.