Evaluating Women's Health Messages: A Resource Book

The increasing attention placed on women′s reproductive health issues in recent years has produced a corresponding interest in the role that communication plays--from promoting better health care to fostering greater well-being. Evaluating Women′s Health Messages is the first systematic examination of women′s health communication. Compiling the works of over 30 contributors, editors Roxanne Louisselle Parrott and Celeste Condit explore the various forms health messages take--medical, social scientific, and public--and the ways in which they compare with and contradict each other. The book is at once groundbreaking and comprehensive, examining the range of health issues from political, historical, technological, social support, and feminist perspectives--all within the broad framework of communication. With two chapters on each topic, the book provides a variety of perspectives on such issues as abortion, infertility, drug and alcohol use in pregnancy, childbirth, prenatal care, AIDS, breast cancer, reproductive technologies, menstruation, menopause, and hysterectomy. Evaluating Women′s Health Messages is a vital tool for every professional interested in women′s health concerns as well as students taking courses in health communication, woman′s health, public health, sociology of health, health education, and gender studies.