People – University of Illinois – Health Communication (HCOM) Online Master of Science

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

Department of Communication

MS in Health Communication

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PEOPLE

Our faculty members are leaders in the field of health communication.

They are engaged in cutting-edge research and have been funded by and reviewed grants for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), including the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute of Nursing Research and the National Cancer Institute, as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), William T. Grant Foundation, National Science Foundation (NSF), among others.

Teaching Faculty

Elisabeth Bigsby, Ph.D.

eHealth

Elisabeth Bigsby, Ph.D.

eHealth

Elisabeth Bigsby studies persuasive health messages, such as anti-smoking campaigns, with a particular interest in how message features influence how people perceive and process information. Her overall interest is to understand how health information influences decisions to engage in health-related behaviors.

Prior to UIUC, Dr. Bigsby held positions at Northeastern University in Boston and the Center of Excellence in Cancer Communication Research at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Before completing her graduate studies, Dr. Bigsby spent three years working in the not-for-profit sector, including one year as an AmeriCorps volunteer.

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John Caughlin

John P. Caughlin, Ph.D.

privacy management

John P. Caughlin, Ph.D.

privacy management

Professor and Associate Head in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Research and teaching interests: family communication, privacy and secrets, disclosure of HIV/AIDS. Professor Caughlin recently received the Bernard J. Brommel Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Family Communication from the National Communication Association.

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Louise Clark, Ph.D.

medical education

Louise Clark, Ph.D.

medical education

Healthcare professions educator and researcher.

Previous positions include Assistant Professor of Medical Education and Assistant Dean of Clinical Skills Education & Innovation at the TCU & UNTHSC School of Medicine and Assistant Professor of Medicine and Deputy Director of Clinical Simulation at Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USUHS).

Research and teaching: clinical communication skills in health care trainee education, compassionate communication in health-related organizations, and healthcare simulation education methodology. A recent research project examines an interprofessional simulation event designed to educate undergraduate medical and graduate nursing students on how to effectively assess and treat patients who have experienced military sexual assault. Her health communication scholarship is published in Health Communication, Communication Monographs, and Simulation in Healthcare. Additionally, she co-edited/authored a forthcoming book being published in Springer’s Comprehensive Healthcare Simulation Series – Implementing Best Practices of Standardized Patient Methodology.

Administrative: At TCU & UNTHSC, Dr. Clark created the human simulation (SP) program, opened related simulation facilities (e.g. mock clinic), recruited and trained the operations staff, and contributed to clinical skills and communication skills curriculum development. At USUHS, Dr. Clark oversaw a team of six full-time Clinical Educators who managed more than 300 simulation events annually (e.g., 75,000 learner contact hours) utilizing high fidelity manikins and standardized patient actors that role play with healthcare trainees in the United States Military. Currently, she provides consultative services including developing communication skills curriculum, coaching healthcare trainees and providers in clinical communication skills, and conducting related research for several healthcare organizations.

Representative partners include(ed): The Academy of Integrative Pain Management, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, University of Vermont College of Medicine, University of Central Florida College of Medicine, and the University of Illinois College of Medicine – Chicago.

Dr. Clark holds a PhD in Human Communication with emphases in Health and Organizational Communication from Arizona State University.

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Cara Finnegan, Ph.D.

visual health communication

Cara Finnegan, Ph.D.

visual health communication

Cara Finnegan is Professor and Associate Head in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois. She studies how visual images communicate in the public sphere, with a special emphasis on political imagery and the history of photography. She is the author of three books, including Picturing Poverty: Print Culture and FSA Photographs (Smithsonian Press, 2003), Making Photography Matter (University of Illinois Press, 2015), and the forthcoming Daguerreotype to Digital: Presidents and Photography in Times of Technological Change (University of Illinois Press, 2020). Her research and teaching uses qualitative and humanistic methods to explore visual communication about topics such as poverty, health, war, politics, labor, gender, race, class, and the environment.

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Lisa Guntzviller, Ph.D.

health literacy

Lisa Guntzviller, Ph.D.

health literacy

Lisa Guntzviller is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Guntzviller has broad interests in interpersonal, family, and health communication, mainly with underserved populations (e.g., low-income, minority). Her research focuses on language brokering: when bilingual (English- and Spanish-speaking) children/adolescents linguistically and culturally mediate for their primarily Spanish-speaking mothers. She also studies social support processes, particularly in the context of giving advice, such as parent-to-child advice on health issues. Additionally, she has also published on patient-provider communication when the patient has communication difficulties (e.g., low English proficiency, low health literacy). Her research has often utilizes dyadic data and employs a multiple goals framework.

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Elaine Hsieh, Ph.D., J.D.

provider-patient communication

Elaine Hsieh, Ph.D., J.D.

provider-patient communication

Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Oklahoma.

My research interests focus on interpersonal issues in health contexts, with an emphasis on cross-cultural care. I have been involved in research on bilingual/cross-cultural health care for over 20 years. I currently pursue two lines of research dealing with health communication for non-English speaking, marginalized, and/or minority patients: (a) interpreter-mediated medical encounters and cross-cultural care, and (b) social support and health literacy in cultural contexts. I am particularly interested in (a) developing a model of bilingual health communication to explain and predict the effectiveness and appropriateness of interpreter-mediated medical encounters, (b) investigating how patients’ (cultural-specific) social support and health literacy influences their coping strategies and health behaviors, and (c) generating a theoretical model of coping that accounts for the social process and temporal aspects of illness management.

In recent years, I have been developing a new research line the centers on two issues: (1) the discrepancies between legal standards and known factors and practices for quality of care and (2) reconceptualizing privacy boundaries, patient autonomy, self-determinism, and health management in the era of genomic medicine. Going forward, I would like to examine how genetic technology and medicine present challenges to individuals’ management of health, privacy, and relationships. I am also interested in examining how institutional practices (e.g., informed consent), health policies (e.g., biobank management), and medicine in general (e.g., use and research of genetic materials) should respond to such paradigm shift in meanings of autonomy, privacy, and property interests. For my latest information and cv, please visit: https://elainehsiehphd.net

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Sally Jackson, Ph.D.

communication technology

Sally Jackson, Ph.D.

communication technology

Professor of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Research and teaching interests: argumentation, communication technology, research methods.

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Leanne Knobloch, Ph.D.

conflict management

Leanne Knobloch, Ph.D.

conflict management

Professor of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Research and teaching interests: relational uncertainty, interpersonal relationships and mental health. Professor Knobloch is engaged in cross-disciplinary research investigating the role of relational stability or uncertainty on outcomes such as depression.

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John Lammers, Ph.D.

health professions and policy

John Lammers, Ph.D.

health professions and policy

Professor of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Director of the HCOM program. Research and teaching interests: institutional theory, communication in health care organizations, and leadership. Professor Lammers consults with health care organizations, is the past chair of the Organizational Communication division of the National Communication Association, and is a past chair of the Health Communication Division of the International Communication Association.

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Marshall Scott Poole

Marshall Scott Poole, Ph.D.

University of Wisconsin

Marshall Scott Poole, Ph.D.

University of Wisconsin

Marshall Scott Poole is the David L. Swanson Professor of Communication, Senior Research Scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, and Director of I-CHASS: The Institute for Computing in the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at the University of Illinois. He is also a CCSS Fellow in the Organization Science Program at Vrije University in Amsterdam, Netherlands. His research interests include group and organizational communication, information and communication technologies, collaboration, organizational change and innovation, and theory construction.

Link to full profile: https://communication.illinois.edu/directory/profile/mspoole

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Brian Quick, Ph.D.

health marketing

Brian Quick, Ph.D.

health marketing

Professor of Communication as well as the College of Medicine at the Universityof Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is also the Associate Director of the HCOM program. Together, Professor Quick and his associates strive to save lives as well as greatly improve the quality of life for individuals by reducing the number of individuals currently waiting for an organ, cornea, or tissue transplant by way of designing, implementing and evaluating multi-media campaigns. His research also examines the role of cognition and emotion at work when processing persuasie health messages as well as portrayals of health issues to understand how these messages create, change and reinforce belief structures.

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Charee M. Thompson, Ph.D.

uncertainty management

Charee M. Thompson, Ph.D.

uncertainty management

I study health communication in personal and patient-provider relationships, specifically focusing on the role communication plays in how people understand health. My research illuminates two perspectives: individuals’ understandings of their own health and individuals’ understandings of others’ health. My first line of research examines how people’s understandings of their own health are fundamentally shaped by their identity—who they are and who they want to be in relation to health. My second research area involves investigating how healthcare providers and personal social network members experience and manage uncertainty they have when trying to understand another’s health.

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Lauren Weiner, Ph.D.

families and health

Lauren Weiner, Ph.D.

families and health

Program Coordinator and Academic Advisor for the HCOM program. Dr. Weiner’s role includes designing and teaching courses, advising current and prospective students, providing professional mentoring for students and overseeing several administrative tasks within the program. Research and teaching interests: health and family communication, family communication and conflict, family communication about genetic risks, and developmental care in NICU families.

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Faculty Spotlight: Meet Professor Brian Quick, Ph.D., Texas A&M

Faculty Spotlight - Brian Quick
What made you decide to become a professor?
I fell in love with the passion and enthusiasm that many of my own professors had for the content they were researching and teaching. My goal from the beginning was to enter a profession where I could make a difference, make the world a better place. My research and teaching has given me that opportunity. I am blessed.

What course(s) do you teach in the program?
In the HCOM program I teach Successful Health Campaigns. In this 8-week class, we examine a handful of theories and explore how these frameworks can inform our message design, as well as our evaluation strategies. It’s a lot of fun!

How is the experience of learning online different to that of learning in a traditional classroom?
Teaching online is a wonderful experience that I look forward to each year! The quality student posts enrich the weekly dialogue regarding how we can best utilize the behavior change models in our own campaigns and initiatives. Week after week I am blown away by the amount of thought and application our students put into their posts. Our students apply course content to their own work environments in meaningful ways. I learn a lot from them and their experiences.

Why do you recommend pursuing a Master’s degree in Health Communication? And, why this particular program?
The healthcare industry is growing and having a MS degree allows our students the opportunity to thrive. There are so many professional opportunities working in the healthcare industry. Why HCOM at Illinois? Our program is asynchronous, which offers our students the flexibility to work at their own pace throughout the week. This flexibility is important considering the majority of our students balance work and family commitments. We are also proud of our courses and the instructors who teach them. They are all accomplished professors who bring a wealth of research and teaching experience to the classroom.

What research projects are you currently working on?
Presently, I am working on several research projects. The License to Save Lives program is designed to educate high school students about the organ donation process, as well as the need for more registered organ donors. Students watch educational videos and narratives from organ recipients, play games, and at the very end, have the opportunity to be a hero by registering to be an organ donor through Donate Life America.

Our Students and Alums

Wonder what it’s like to be in the HCOM program? Here’s what our students and alums say about the HCOM experience:

Laura Riordan
Seth Peattie
Camille Starkey
Brooke Clubbs
Bennett Baber
Corbin Knight-Dixon
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