{"id":1461,"date":"2011-04-09T22:00:47","date_gmt":"2011-04-09T20:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=1461"},"modified":"2011-03-30T12:49:24","modified_gmt":"2011-03-30T10:49:24","slug":"adapting-health-communication-to-cultural-needs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=1461","title":{"rendered":"Adapting health communication to cultural needs"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;\"><strong>Adapting health communication to cultural needs:<\/strong> Optimizing documents in South-African health communication on HIV and AIDS. Ed. by <strong>Piet Swanepoel<\/strong> and <strong>Hans Hoeken<\/strong>. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2008. Pp. 178. ISBN <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldcat.org\/title\/adapting-health-communication-to-cultural-needs-optimizing-documents-in-south-african-health-communication-on-hiv-and-aids\/oclc\/226279590&amp;referer=brief_results\">9789027232472<\/a>. $128 (Hb).<\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">Reviewed by<strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bigsas.uni-bayreuth.de\/en\/research\/team_docs\/peem_laure\/index.html\">Laure T. Y. Peem<\/a><\/strong>, <em>University of Bayreuth, Germany<\/em><\/p>\n<p>How can communication on health issues, especially HIV and AIDS, be carried out efficiently in a culturally diversified country like South Africa? This volume provides a variety of answers to this question from divergent perspectives. The nine chapters investigate strategies for weaving HIV and AIDS interventions into the cultural fabric of given target groups. The contributors come from different research backgrounds (e.g. language studies, psychology, journalism and mass communication, health sciences).<\/p>\n<p>The introductory chapter, \u2018Optimizing health communication in South Africa\u2019 by Hans Hoeken and Piet Swanepoel, is an overview of the content of the volume. In \u2018Planned development of culturally sensitive health promotion programs: An intervention mapping approach\u2019, <strong>Madelief G. B. C. Bertens<\/strong>, <strong>Herman P. Schaalma<\/strong>, <strong>Kay Bartholomew<\/strong>, and <strong>Bart van den Borne<\/strong> present the intervention mapping approach as a fundamental tool for successfully planning health promotion programs likely to match the socio-cultural backgrounds of their target populations. <strong>Gary R. Pettey<\/strong> and <strong>Richard M. Perloff<\/strong>, in \u2018Creating a climate of safer sex: Making efficacious action plausible\u2019, argue that for health campaigns to succeed, there must be adequate information and necessary equipment (e.g. condoms) for the target groups.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Marco Yzer<\/strong>\u2019s \u2018The integrative model of behavioral prediction and message-based HIV prevention\u2019 demonstrates the usefulness and applicability of the integrative model of behavioral prediction for the development of culturally sensitive messages to fight HIV in non-Western societies. In \u2018Health education in action in Southern Africa: Soul City\u2019, <strong>Sue Goldstein<\/strong>, <strong>Harriet Perlman<\/strong>, and <strong>Caroline Jane Smith<\/strong> analyze the design and implementation of the Soul City model in South Africa and other neighboring countries and show that an \u2018edutainment\u2019 (73) and a participatory approach can be effective for sensitization at the individual, the community, and the socio-political levels. Piet Swanepoel, <strong>Marije Burger<\/strong>, <strong>Anne Loohuis<\/strong>, and <strong>Carel Jansen<\/strong>, in \u2018Promoting VCT among South African students: Are we missing the message?\u2019, propose guidelines for choosing the content of brochures that will encourage young people to overcome fear and take up voluntary counseling and testing.<\/p>\n<p>In \u2018Cultural differences in the perceptions of fear and efficacy in South Africa,\u2019 <strong>Carel Jansen<\/strong>, Hans Hoeken, <strong>Dineke Ehlers<\/strong>, and <strong>Frans van der Slik<\/strong> show that the efficacy of \u2018fear appeals\u2019 (108) in health interventions is determined by the perception of fear, which varies from one culture to another. \u2018The effect of language style in message-based HIV prevention\u2019 by <strong>Elvis Saal<\/strong>, stresses the importance of selecting appropriate language varieties for successful HIV messages. In the concluding chapter, \u2018Visual health communication: Why and how do literate and low literate South Africans differ in their understanding of visual health messages?\u2019, <strong>Alfon Maes<\/strong>, <strong>Karen Foesenek,<\/strong> and<strong> Hanneke Hoogwegt<\/strong> demonstrate that consideration of aptitudes and strategies of interpreting health visuals may vary from one target group to the next depending on their respective level of visual literacy. They argue that this variation must be taken into account in the production of more efficient health visuals.<\/p>\n<p>This collection elaborates on pertinent theoretical and methodological frameworks applicable to health communication. It provides remarkable insights for better HIV and AIDS campaigns. Thanks to its multidisciplinary focus and given the variety and the pertinence of the issues, this clearly written and well-illustrated volume will be stimulating for scholars, students, health programs planners or designers as well as those particularly interested in health communication in non-Western cultures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Adapting health communication to cultural needs: Optimizing documents in South-African health communication on HIV and AIDS. Ed. by Piet Swanepoel and Hans Hoeken. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2008. Pp. 178. ISBN 9789027232472. $128 (Hb). Reviewed by Laure T. Y. Peem, University of Bayreuth, Germany How can communication on health issues, especially HIV and AIDS, be carried [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1462,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1461\/revisions\/1462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}