The core objective of this joint initiative by Rutgers’ School of Communication & Information and the School of Health Professions, working together with Rutgers Global, is to Advance Health Communication Research, Education, and Practice Across the Health Professions in Greece and the U.S. We are pursuing this vision through a broad array of activities and in close collaboration with institutional partners in Greece. Our initiative was developed in the context of our participation in the International Academic Partnerships Program – Greece (IAPP-Greece); an academic incubator program sponsored in 2020 by the Greek Ministry of Education, the U.S. Department of Education, the Institute of International Education, and the Fulbright Foundation, among other organizations, designed to promote international collaboration between U.S. and Greek institutions of higher education
How Solidarity Outpatient Clinics Helped Combat Health Disparities During the Global Economic Crisis and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Lessons from Greece
We investigate the multiple ways in which solidarity outpatient clinics (SOCs)–a type of grassroots organization that emerged in Greece during a decade-long economic crisis–helped socioeconomically disadvantaged populations address pressing health needs and provided social support during the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic. We also examine the role of communication as a social process through which SOCs established themselves as critical community health resources. Finally, we study SOCs as potential models of patient-centered communication and care delivery. The project is built on socio-ecological theoretical approaches to communication and public health and relies on a case-study approach employing a mixed-methods research design.
Combating COVID-19: Investigating Vaccine Hesitancy and Communication Practices Among Healthcare Providers and Patients in Local New Jersey Communities
Even as COVID-19 vaccination rates accelerate in the U.S., minority communities remain under-vaccinated, due to both vaccine hesitancy and barriers to access. This project focuses on the role that healthcare providers play in encouraging vaccination within the communities they serve, by investigating vaccine perceptions and communication practices among healthcare providers and residents in Newark, New Jersey. Whereas most research on vaccination uptake is conducted at the national level, this project addresses the community level, in order to understand local factors that affect vaccine perceptions and access and, in turn, inform strategies to improve provider-patient communication and, ultimately, vaccine equity.
Project ASPEN
a collaboration between a team of researchers from Rutgers University and the National Alliance on Mental Illness New Jersey (NAMI NJ) that is funded by a grant from the William T. Grant Foundation (Active Surveillance of Policy Ecosystems and Networks (ASPEN) to Enhance Brokering of Research Evidence into State Policymaking). This three-year project will develop and implement an intervention to facilitate policymakers’ access to and use of research evidence that is relevant to adolescent mental health policy, specifically implementation of universal adolescent mental health screening in New Jersey public schools.