UNC-Chapel Hill offers new interdisciplinary graduate program in health communication
| March 30, 2007 | |
| The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will begin offering a certificate program in interdisciplinary health communication for graduate students in the fall 2007 semester. The program is designed to develop expertise in health communication for use in applied practice, academic and research settings.
Certificate recipients are trained to apply what they have learned in real-world settings, such as departments of public health, health service agencies, public relations or advertising firms, libraries and Web design firms. Students who take a research-oriented approach are trained to apply appropriate theories in designing studies of health messages and channels of communication. “This initiative fosters a rich interchange of ideas among students and faculty,” said Jean Folkerts, dean of the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication. “We are working across disciplines. This kind of collaboration makes Carolina a unique place to conduct research and receive graduate training in health communication.” The interdisciplinary program involves more than 20 faculty members from the schools of journalism and mass communication, public health, information and library science, and the psychology department in the College of Arts and Sciences. Students in the program will choose to specialize in one of two areas – how health communication leads people to change their behaviors, or how to use integrated communication strategies to create and deliver health information through a variety of methods. The certificate program will draw on current health communication research at UNC-Chapel Hill in the areas of using the Internet and other technology to improve health, message tailoring, risk communication, health decision making, dissemination, media effects, psychological processes, usability of electronic medical information and health marketing. For more information about the certificate program in interdisciplinary health communication, visit the IHC website at www.ihc.unc.edu or email ihc@unc.edu. # # # School of Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, (919) 966-7467, ramona_dubose@unc.edu. School of Journalism and Mass Communication contact: Kyle York, (919) 966-3323, skyork@email.unc.edu. |
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