Health Communication Theory and Research: An Overview of Health Organizations

This overview presents the point of view that health organizations are quite different from other organizations and, therefore, deserve to be studied as a context in their own right. An analytic framework is presented through which communication in health organizations can be studied. This framework entails a three-by-four factor matrix, where levels of communication (individual, interpersonal, group, and organizational) are associated with functions of communication (adaptation, coordination, and integration). Research and theory relevant to each cell within this framework is presented and discussed. Present limitations of this framework are reviewed and specific avenues of elaboration are suggested

Bio-politics and the promotion of traditional herbal medicine in Vietnam

It is often suggested that, in the past 50 years, Vietnam has experienced a traditional medicine ‘revival’ that can be traced back to late President Ho Chi Minh's 1955 appeal ‘to study means of uniting the effects of oriental remedies with those of Europe’. In this article, I demonstrate how traditional herbal medicine came to be recruited as an important component of national efforts to promote the public health of urban and rural populations in Vietnam. Importantly, this has entailed a rejection of a colonial biopolitics that sought to marginalize ‘quackery’ in favour of a postcolonial bio-politics that aims to promote the ‘appropriate’ use of traditional herbal medicines. While the Vietnamese case bears many parallels to other countries in this respect, notably China, Vietnam's ancient history of medicine, postcolonial isolation and extensive health delivery network have resulted in a unique strategy that encourages rural populations to become self-sufficient in the herbal treatment of their most common illnesses