Vinita Agarwal

Communicative Reconstruction of Resilience Labor: Identity/Identification in Disaster-Relief Workers

Drawing from the structurational theory of identification [Scott, Corman, & Cheney, 1998] and resilience theory [Buzzanell, 2010], our inquiry provides insight into the sustainability of disaster-relief worker involvement and the discursive processes whereby workers overcome emotional and physical challenges to create resilience labor. Analyzing 23 semi-structured interviews with disaster-relief workers of a non-profit organization, we define resilience labor as the dual-layered process of reintegrating transformative identities and identifications to sustain and construct ongoing organizational involvement and resilience. The identification frames align with familial, ideological, and destruction–renewal network ties that empower individuals to construct their identities in transformative ways. The frames can guide non-profit managers and volunteers working in extreme contexts characterized by societal conflicts or disruption to sustain themselves as they construct resilience labor.

A/H1N1 Vaccine Intentions in College Students: An Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior

Abstract Objective: To test the applicability of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) in college students who have not previously received the A/H1N1 vaccine. Participants: Undergraduate communication students at a metropolitan southern university. Methods: In January–March 2010, students from voluntarily participating communication classes completed a hardcopy survey assessing TPB and clinically significant constructs. Hierarchical regression equations predicted variance in vaccine intentions of students who had not received a flu shot (N = 198; 70% Caucasian). Results: The TPB model explained 51.7% (p < .001) of variance in vaccine intentions. Controlling for side effects, self-efficacy and perceived comparative susceptibility predicted intentions when entered in the first block, whereas attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control significantly contribute when entered in the second block. Conclusions: For students who have not previously received a flu vaccine, vaccine communication should utilize self-efficacy and perceived comparative susceptibility to employ the TPB to promote vaccine intentions.

Investigating the convergent validity of organizational trust

Purpose – Organizational trust is an important construct for organizational and public relations scholars and practitioners for its influence on key organizational outcomes, yet the convergent validity of organizational trust instruments has not been investigated by any study. The purpose of this paper is to address an important gap in the literature by reporting the results of a systematic investigation of the convergent validity of three organizational trust measures, taking an interpersonal, public relations, and organizational approach to trust in organizations respectively.Design/methodology/approach – IRB approval was obtained for a cross‐sectional study design gathering self‐reports from participants through an online data gathering system of a large Midwestern university in the USA. Correlational matrices, along with exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses adapting the multitrait‐multimethod matrix, were employed for data analysis.Findings – The three trust measures demonstrate mixed evidence...

Urbanization and Strategic Health Communication in India

Although urbanization contributes significantly to a country’s economy, overcrowding and lack of proper sanitation in some countries lead to health problems among the urban poor. The continued migration of people to the already crowded urban areas compounds the problem. This chapter provides an overview of global urbanization and examines the potential of theory-based strategic health communication in addressing urban public health issues, particularly HIV-AIDS, in one country, India.

Taking Care, Bringing Life: A Post-structuralist Feminist Analysis of Maternal Discourses of Mothers and Dais in India

ABSTRACT My post-structuralist feminist reading of the antenatal and birthing practices of women (N = 25) living in a basti in India makes visible how the meanings of maternal experiences constituted as our ways open discursive spaces for the mothers and dais as procreators to: challenge (i.e., question the authority of), co-opt (i.e., conditionally adopt), and judge (i.e., employ sanctioned criteria to regulate) competing knowledge production forms. In critiquing maternal knowledge as feminist discourse, the women’s strategies contribute theoretically to an integrative construction of care by reclaiming displaced knowledge discourses and diversity in meaning production. Pragmatically, consciousness-raising collectives comprising the mothers and dais can cocreate narratives of our ways of maternal experiences articulated in public discourse to sustain equitability of knowledge traditions in migrant urban Third World contexts.

Complementary and Alternative Medicine Provider Knowledge Discourse on Holistic Health

Complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) promises a wide array of therapies employed increasingly by consumers for disease prevention and health promotion. Despite this increasing use, however, CAM and biomedical paradigms are often not combined effectively in the US. The lack of coordination negatively impacts several aspects of patient care including CAM and biomedical provider-patient relationships and the practice of integrative medicine. The goal of this study is to understand how CAM providers position their knowledge and practice of holistic health within the healthcare landscape in the US. In-depth interviews with CAM providers (N=17) sampled from practices in the mid-Atlantic region of the US were analyzed for provider descriptions of holistic health. Discourse analysis of CAM provider interviews identifies the three themes employed by CAM providers to describe holistic health as comprising the: (a) epistemologies of legitimization and identity, (b) epistemologies of sense and intuition, and (c) epistemologies of environment and community. The three epistemologies define holistic health by organizing diverse knowledge foundations through reconciling and integrating differences, including diverse modes of evidence such as non-empirical forms of whole body experiences, and privileging the relational praxis through integrating the individual’s biological and sociocultural environment. The epistemologies illuminate how CAM knowledge and practice is positioned as alternative within the sociocultural context of the participants and reflect CAM providers’ challenges in carving out a distinct knowledge space reflecting their professional identity. CAM providers’ discourse encompasses the ontological and experiential-relational praxis to foreground health as a mutually constitutive, ongoing process of granting legitimacy to diverse sense-making ontologies of medicine within a continuum of provider-patient meaning-making. Theoretically, CAM knowledge of holistic health integrates the experiential praxis of the patient’s spiritual and physiological self and the relational praxis of the patient’s biological-sociocultural-epigenetic relationships in the conceptualization and delivery of health outcomes. The study findings recommend including CAM knowledge discourses to inform the epistemological foundations of basic medicine. Pragmatically, the study recommends support for efforts to include credentialing of CAM practitioner teaching within allopathic healthcare institutions, faculty development within existing allopathic health professional schools, and incorporation of CAM content in allopathic medical education and practice.

Investigating the Contribution of Benefits and Barriers on Mammography Intentions of Middle Class Urban Indian Women: An Exploratory Study

Few studies on screening behaviors have examined socio-cognitive correlates of cancer beliefs for South Asian women to inform message design in health communication campaigns (Airhihenbuwa & Obregon, 2000). This exploratory study investigates the contribution of benefits and barriers in mammography intentions in a non-probability sample (N = 86) of urban Indian women recruited from 3 neighborhoods. Logistic regression analyses of cross-sectional data demonstrate that benefits of mammography significantly influence mammography intentions (p < .05), whereas barriers do not. In conclusion, support is found for emphasizing benefits of mammography for mammography intentions in the middle class urban Indian sample examined in the study.

The Provider’s Body in the Therapeutic Relationship: How Complementary and Alternative Medicine Providers Describe Their Work as Healers

ABSTRACT Although the body is central to health outcomes, the provider’s body has been largely absent in the provider–patient relationship. Drawing upon semi-structured interviews with complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) providers (N = 17), this study examines how CAM providers use their body to characterize their work as healers. The findings suggest the provider’s self-reflexive awareness of their own body’s illness and faith experiences informs their understanding of the patients’ experience of health and disease. The study foregrounds the intersubjective nature of the provider–patient relationship as an embodied interaction in the mutual construction of therapeutic goals. Provider reflection on their own bodies to make sense of their patients’ experiences emphasizes provider–patient coproduction of meaning and suggests ways for including the provider’s self-reflexive awareness of their own body in a patient-centered healthcare relationship in ways that benefit both the patient and the provider.