ABSTRACT
Media studies is one of the main disciplines that has influenced health communication. Media can influence the public and its decisions and behaviors through education and propagandizing healthy behaviors. Health communication has been studied in different contexts such as interpersonal, intergroup, and intercultural/cross-cultural communication. The relationship between patients and providers includes different aspects of an interpersonal relationship and health is an important factor in many such occasions. Patient–provider interaction is a key area of study in health communication and essential to health care delivery. Along with the provider–patient, romantic relationships and family relationships are among the most studied relationships. Family health communication research focuses on different variations of the intra-family relationship such as the parent-child relationship or marital relationships. Family communication research has shown the family can mediate in and affect sickness processes and side-effects such as allostatic load, depressive disorders, and health promoting/compromising behaviors.
