K Viswanath
Biographic Data
| ID | 1253333 |
|---|---|
| NAME | K Viswanath |
| GIVEN NAMES | K |
| FAMILY NAME | Viswanath |
| SIGNATURE | VISWANATH K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Harvard University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4795-5803 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 75 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 217 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 73 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1988 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
The Relationship Between News Coverage of Covid-19 Misinformation and Online Search Behavior
The spread of health misinformation poses a threat to public health as it can influence individuals' health beliefs and, potentially, behaviors, and their support for public health policies. The mainstream news media have the potential to inadvertently increase the salience of misinformation through their reporting. This study explores the agenda-setting effects of mainstream news media coverage on public salience of public health misinformation …
Understanding and Addressing Misinformation About Science
Can we convince the unvaccinated to vaccinate
The study highlights the factors that explain intention-behavior gap in vaccination. We identified what explains individuals' intentions to vaccinate and their actual vaccination behavior one year later, as well as the potential to influence vaccine-hesitant individuals to vaccinate and pro-vaccine individuals from actualizing their vaccination intentions. Understanding these factors is essential in developing evidence-based strategic communicati…
Enhancing cultural sensitivity in the implementation of the Fertility Quality of Life Tool in Sudan
Background: Infertility is a global health challenge impacting quality of life, particularly in low and middle-income countries such as Sudan. The Fertility Quality of Life (FertiQoL) tool, a standardized questionnaire, is pivotal in assessing fertility-related quality of life. However, existing research on its utility has primarily been conducted in Global North and High-Income Countries, highlighting the need to shift away from neocolonialism t…
Does social media use make us happy? A meta-analysis on social media and positive well-being outcomes
In social media use research on mental health, a comprehensive summary of the association between social media use and “positive” well-being in all its nuances, including different well-being indicators considered separately, is lacking. To fill the gap, we carried out a meta-analytic review of the literature by including 78 studies published between 2009 and September 2022. In our meta-analyses, we explored the association between social media u…
Toward an Extended Infodemiology Framework
This study aims to extend the infodemiology framework by postulating that effective use of digital data sources for cancer communication should consider four components: (a) content: key topics that people are concerned with, (b) congruence: how interest in cancer topics differ between public posts (i.e., tweets) and private web searches, (c) context: the influence of the information environment, and (d) information conduits. We compared tweets (…
Beyond Educating the Masses
Public health communication has long been a key component of tobacco control efforts. However, little is known whether and how such an effort could address disparities in tobacco risk perceptions among population subgroups. In this study, using data from the Global Adult Tobacco Survey of Ethiopia, we examined if tobacco risk perceptions varied across socioeconomic and urban vs. rural population subgroups, and whether and how exposure to anti-smo…
Screen time and adolescents' mental health before and after the Covid-19 lockdown in Switzerland
These results align with literature indicating a small but negative effect of social media time on mental health. Underlying mechanisms are manifold, including increased exposure to COVID-19 news, heightened fear of missing out, social comparison, and time-displaced for activities such as physical activity and green time. However, in line with the structured days hypothesis , getting involved in media-structured activities like television viewing…
Associations between sociodemographic factors and receiving "ask and advise" services from healthcare providers in India
This study offers a helpful starting point in identifying opportunities to address a critical service delivery gap in India. Given the existing burden on the public health and health systems, scale-up will require innovative, resource-appropriate solutions. The findings also point to the need to center equity in the design and scale-up of tobacco cessation supports so that marginalized and underserved groups will have equitable access to these cr…
Examining the Effects of Fathers’ Residency Status on Childhood Obesity
Measuring What Matters
The ways in which we collect health and social data, particularly data on vulnerable and underprivileged populations, is enormously influential over the quality and content of science and health communication. Data absenteeism-the absence or limits of data on groups experiencing social vulnerability-is endemic; and as a result, inferences drawn from studies with absentee data are questionable. Reasons for data absenteeism include tendencies towar…
Tobacco messages encountered in real-time among low socio-economic position groups
Low SEP groups in this study encountered more pro-tobacco than anti-tobacco messages at places that were point-of-sale using price promotions to appeal to this group. Anti-tobacco messages at point-of-sale and/or advertising regulations may help combat tobacco use
Individual and social determinants of Covid-19 vaccine uptake
Our study identified race/ethnicity, risk perceptions, exposure to different media for COVID-19 news, party identification and confidence in scientists as factors that would be affecting COVID-19 vaccine uptake. The good news is that these are addressable through strategic public health communications, but a lot of work remains to be done with some urgency
Association of social participation, perception of neighborhood social cohesion, and social media use with happiness
Social participation and neighborhood social cohesion are positively associated with health and wellbeing. Given that in‐person social interactions have generally dwindled over the past several decades at least in Western countries and social media use has become more common, in this study, we examined whether and how social media use interacts with social participation and neighborhood social cohesion in influencing happiness. Data were gathered…
Past Debates, Fresh Impact on Nano-Enabled Food
Informed by the notion of spillover effects between two phenomena, this study examines how differences in prior attitudes would influence the relationships posited by the influence of presumed media influence (IPMI) model. Specifically, this study examines how pre-existing favorable and unfavorable attitudes toward genetically modified (GM) food are associated with audiences’ intention to consume nano-enabled food. The results of a nationally rep…
We Need the Lens of Equity in Covid-19 Communication
providing fertile ground for the spread of information, misinformation and disinformation. With limited gatekeeping, an immense amount of unprocessed scientific information is being put forward to publics not trained in science. In this commentary, we offer some propositions on how disinformation on COVID-19 has become mainstreamed through social media's spiral of amplification and what role public communication has in an emergency from a lens of…
Comparing the knowledge gap hypothesis in the United States and Singapore
This study examines the knowledge gap hypothesis in the United States and Singapore in the context of nanotechnology. This study proposes that academic discipline serves as a better indicator than education levels in predicting nanotechnology knowledge gaps. To reflect the contemporary media landscape, this study examines how attention to online media and documentaries alongside traditional news outlets affect individuals’ nanotechnology knowledg…
Designing Capacity-Building Supports to Promote Evidence-Based Programs in Community-Based Organizations Working with Underserved Populations
Ongoing capacity-building supports may promote EBP planning in CBOs, but institutional constraints may limit practitioners' ability to engage with such supports
Designing Capacity-Building Supports to Promote Evidence-Based Programs in Community-Based Organizations Working with Underserved Populations
Designing Capacity-Building Supports to Promote Evidence-Based Programs in Community-Based Organizations Working with Underserved Populations Shoba Ramanadhan, ScD, MPH, David Aronstein, MSW, Vilma Martinez-Dominguez, Ziming Xuan, ScD, SM, MA, and K. Viswanath, PhD What Is the Purpose of this Study? • To use a community-based participatory research approach to design, deliver, and evaluate an intervention to build capacity in community-based orga…
Sexual Health Information Sources, Needs, and Preferences of Young Adult Sexual Minority Cisgender Women and Non-binary Individuals Assigned Female at Birth
Community engagement for health system resilience
The importance of community engagement (CE) for health system resilience is established in theoretical and empirical literature. The practical dimensions of how to operationalize theory and implement its principles have been less explored, especially within low-resource crisis settings. It is therefore unclear how CE is drawn upon and how, if at all, it facilitates health system resilience in times of health system crises. To address this critica…
The relationship between Jim Crow laws and social capital from 1997-2014
Association of Social Media Use With Social Well-Being, Positive Mental Health, and Self-Rated Health
Most studies addressing social media use as a normal social behavior with positive or negative effects on health-related outcomes have conceptualized and measured social media use and its effects in terms of dose–effect relations. These studies focus on measuring frequency and duration of use, and have seldom considered users’ emotional connections to social media use and the effects associated with such connections. By using a scale with two dim…
Smoking portrayal in Ethiopian movies
Considerable research from high-income countries has characterized the amount, nature and effects of movie smoking depiction. However, in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) where tobacco use and tobacco-related diseases are growing, little research has investigated smoking imagery in movies. This study examined the extent and nature of smoking portrayal in locally produced Ethiopian movies, and estimated the number of tobacco impressions mo…
Short Sleep Duration and Insomnia Symptoms were Associated with Lower Happiness Levels in Chinese Adults in Hong Kong
Study objective : To examine the association of sleep duration and insomnia symptoms with happiness. Methods : A random sample of 1691 Chinese adult (mean age 54 ± 20.1, male 51%) were interviewed in a population-based telephone survey. Happiness was measured by the subjective happiness scale (SHS) and the one-item global happiness index (GHI). Information on sleep included mean past seven-day sleep duration ( Results : Compared to ≥8 h of sleep,…
Ethnic Media in the United States
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants have entered the United States in the last 2 decades and even more are expected to do so in the coming years. This increasing presence of members from diverse ethnic identities is leading to what some have characterized as a permanently unfinished American society. Ethnic groups have grown active and have established institutions to sustain their ethnicity and ease their transition into American society with va…
Social Capital and Health
Objectives. We explored the effects of community integration and pluralism on recall of cardiovascular disease health information messages. Methods. With 1980–1983 data from the Minnesota Heart Health Program, we examined whether ties to community groups were associated with recall of health messages, and whether this relation was modified by size and degree of differentiation of the community. Results. A higher level of civic engagement through …
Translating Research Evidence Into Practice to Reduce Health Disparities
Translating research evidence to reduce health disparities has emerged as a global priority. The 2008 World Health Organization Commission on Social Determinants of Health recently urged that gaps in health attributable to political, social, and economic factors should be closed in a generation. Achieving this goal requires a social determinants approach to create public health systems that translate efficacy documented by research into effective…
Message Effects and Social Determinants of Health
Journal Article Message Effects and Social Determinants of Health: Its Application to Cancer Disparities Get access K. Viswanath, K. Viswanath 1Harvard School of Public Health, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02115 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Karen M. Emmons Karen M. Emmons 1Harvard School of Public Health, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02115 Search for other works by this author on…
The Intersectionality of Discrimination Attributes and Bullying Among Youth
The Knowledge Gap Hypothesis
Citizens’ acquisition of mass media information has long been a concern of social scientists and policy makers. The conventional wisdom that increasing the flow of information will ensure its widespread acquisition has been criticized based on studies showing inequitable information acquisition between groups of higher and lower socioeconomic status. The knowledge gap hypothesis, formalized in 1970, posits increasing differences in knowledge due …
Community Ties and Use of Cable TV and Newspapers in a Midwest Suburb
The relationship between Jim Crow laws and social capital from 1997-2014
Determinants and beliefs of health information mavens among a lower-socioeconomic position and minority population
Community engagement for health system resilience
The importance of community engagement (CE) for health system resilience is established in theoretical and empirical literature. The practical dimensions of how to operationalize theory and implement its principles have been less explored, especially within low-resource crisis settings. It is therefore unclear how CE is drawn upon and how, if at all, it facilitates health system resilience in times of health system crises. To address this critica…
Does community capacity influence self-rated health? Multilevel contextual effects in Seoul, Korea
Longitudinal Patterns and Predictors of Depression Trajectories Related to the 2014 Occupy Central/Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong
Objectives. To examine the longitudinal patterns and predictors of depression trajectories before, during, and after Hong Kong’s 2014 Occupy Central/Umbrella Movement. Methods. In a prospective study, between March 2009 and November 2015, we interviewed 1170 adults randomly sampled from the population-representative FAMILY Cohort. We used the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 to assess depressive symptoms and probable major depression. We investigat…
A Comparative Analysis of the Performance of Alternative Measures of Exposure
This paper compares eight approaches to measurement of exposure to cancer information in the mass media: general media exposure, exposure to health media, attention to health topics, quantity of health information, general and specific cancer exposure assessed by closed- and by open-ended questions. After demographic controls, the strongest predictor of cancer knowledge was the open-ended general measure (9.8% additional variance), then open-ende…
Measuring What Matters
The ways in which we collect health and social data, particularly data on vulnerable and underprivileged populations, is enormously influential over the quality and content of science and health communication. Data absenteeism-the absence or limits of data on groups experiencing social vulnerability-is endemic; and as a result, inferences drawn from studies with absentee data are questionable. Reasons for data absenteeism include tendencies towar…
Community type and the diffusion of campaign information
This study explored the role of community pluralism in the diffusion of information. More specifically, this paperused community pluralism as a contextual variable in studying the mediating impact of SES variables on program awareness and name recall of a cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention program in three communities of differing complexity. Data for this study came from 14 surveys over a period of five years. The study found that program a…
Health and Knowledge Gaps
Association of social participation, perception of neighborhood social cohesion, and social media use with happiness
Social participation and neighborhood social cohesion are positively associated with health and wellbeing. Given that in‐person social interactions have generally dwindled over the past several decades at least in Western countries and social media use has become more common, in this study, we examined whether and how social media use interacts with social participation and neighborhood social cohesion in influencing happiness. Data were gathered…
Association between exposure to health information and mortality
Graphic health warnings as activators of social networks
Mental Health, Racial Discrimination, and Tobacco Use Differences Across Rural‐Urban California
Residing in rural areas was associated with an increased risk for smoking, above and beyond sociodemographics. There were no significant differences across rural-urban environments for the relationship between stress and tobacco use-an indication that the impact of stress and discrimination is not buffered or exacerbated by environmental characteristics potentially found in either location. Mechanisms that explain rural-urban tobacco use disparit…
Television Viewing and Pedometer-Determined Physical Activity Among Multiethnic Residents of Low-Income Housing
Objectives. We evaluated the association between television viewing and pedometer-determined physical activity among predominantly racial/ethnic minority residents of low-income housing in metropolitan Boston in 2005. Methods. We used mixed models to analyze the association between reported hours of television viewing and pedometer-determined steps per day among 486 adults. We also examined whether television viewing was associated with the achie…
Gender Advertising in the US and India
Sexual Health Information Sources, Needs, and Preferences of Young Adult Sexual Minority Cisgender Women and Non-binary Individuals Assigned Female at Birth
Much Ventured, Much Gained
Investments required to support engaged data collection were larger than anticipated, as were the rewards, prompting greater attention to the integration of adolescents and young adults in research efforts
The National Cancer Institute’s Community Networks Program Initiative to Reduce Cancer Health Disparities
Findings demonstrate the value of government-supported, community-academic, CBPR partnerships in cancer prevention and control research
Community Ties and Use of Cable TV and Newspapers in a Midwest Suburb
Health and Knowledge Gaps
Gender Advertising in the US and India
Community type and the diffusion of campaign information
This study explored the role of community pluralism in the diffusion of information. More specifically, this paperused community pluralism as a contextual variable in studying the mediating impact of SES variables on program awareness and name recall of a cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention program in three communities of differing complexity. Data for this study came from 14 surveys over a period of five years. The study found that program a…
The Knowledge Gap Hypothesis
Citizens’ acquisition of mass media information has long been a concern of social scientists and policy makers. The conventional wisdom that increasing the flow of information will ensure its widespread acquisition has been criticized based on studies showing inequitable information acquisition between groups of higher and lower socioeconomic status. The knowledge gap hypothesis, formalized in 1970, posits increasing differences in knowledge due …
Mass Media and Health Promotion
Ethnic Media in the United States
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants have entered the United States in the last 2 decades and even more are expected to do so in the coming years. This increasing presence of members from diverse ethnic identities is leading to what some have characterized as a permanently unfinished American society. Ethnic groups have grown active and have established institutions to sustain their ethnicity and ease their transition into American society with va…
International communication History
An Idea Whose Time Has Come
(2002). An Idea Whose Time Has Come: International Communication History. Mass Communication and Society: Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 1-6
International Communication History
Volume 5, Number 1, 2002 Contents: H. Dicken-Garcia, K. Viswanath, Guest Editors' Note: An Idea Whose Time Has Come: International Communication History. ARTICLES: A.W. Palmer, Negotiation and Resistance in Global Networks: The 1884 International Meridian Conference. H. Hardt, Reading the Russian Revolution: International Communication Research and the Journalism of Lippmann and Merz. J. Ostini, A.Y.H. Fung, Beyond the Four Theories of the Press:…
The Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS)
Little is known about access, sources, and trust of cancer-related information, or factors that facilitate or hinder communication on a population-wide basis. Through a careful developmental process involving extensive input from many individuals and organizations, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) developed the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) to help fill this gap. This nationally representative telephone survey of 6,369 pers…
Lessons Learned from Public Health Mass Media Campaigns
Every year, new public health mass media campaigns are launched attempting to change health behavior and improve health outcomes. These campaigns enter a crowded media environment filled with messages from competing sources. Public health practitioners have to capture not only the attention of the public amid such competition, but also motivate them to change health behaviors that are often entrenched or to initiate habits that may be new or diff…
Trust and Sources of Health Information
BACKGROUND: The context in which patients consume health information has changed dramatically with diffusion of the Internet, advances in telemedicine, and changes in media health coverage. The objective of this study was to provide nationally representative estimates for health-related uses of the Internet, level of trust in health information sources, and preferences for cancer information sources. METHODS: Data from the Health Information Nati…
Television Viewing and Pedometer-Determined Physical Activity Among Multiethnic Residents of Low-Income Housing
Objectives. We evaluated the association between television viewing and pedometer-determined physical activity among predominantly racial/ethnic minority residents of low-income housing in metropolitan Boston in 2005. Methods. We used mixed models to analyze the association between reported hours of television viewing and pedometer-determined steps per day among 486 adults. We also examined whether television viewing was associated with the achie…
Social Capital and Health
Objectives. We explored the effects of community integration and pluralism on recall of cardiovascular disease health information messages. Methods. With 1980–1983 data from the Minnesota Heart Health Program, we examined whether ties to community groups were associated with recall of health messages, and whether this relation was modified by size and degree of differentiation of the community. Results. A higher level of civic engagement through …
Message Effects and Social Determinants of Health
Journal Article Message Effects and Social Determinants of Health: Its Application to Cancer Disparities Get access K. Viswanath, K. Viswanath 1Harvard School of Public Health, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02115 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Karen M. Emmons Karen M. Emmons 1Harvard School of Public Health, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA 02115 Search for other works by this author on…
Mass Media
Ethnic Media
A Comparative Analysis of the Performance of Alternative Measures of Exposure
This paper compares eight approaches to measurement of exposure to cancer information in the mass media: general media exposure, exposure to health media, attention to health topics, quantity of health information, general and specific cancer exposure assessed by closed- and by open-ended questions. After demographic controls, the strongest predictor of cancer knowledge was the open-ended general measure (9.8% additional variance), then open-ende…
The role of reported tobacco-specific media exposure on adult attitudes towards proposed policies to limit the portrayal of smoking in movies
Media campaigns to prevent tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke have had value beyond the intended impact of single-issue campaigns; exposure to anti-tobacco campaigns and public dialogue about the dangers of tobacco seem also to be associated with shaping perceptions of the social world related to norms about tobacco, and ideas about regulating the portrayal of smoking in movies
Translating Research Evidence Into Practice to Reduce Health Disparities
Translating research evidence to reduce health disparities has emerged as a global priority. The 2008 World Health Organization Commission on Social Determinants of Health recently urged that gaps in health attributable to political, social, and economic factors should be closed in a generation. Achieving this goal requires a social determinants approach to create public health systems that translate efficacy documented by research into effective…
Social Disparities, Communication Inequalities, and HIV/Aids-Related Knowledge and Attitudes in India
Determinants and beliefs of health information mavens among a lower-socioeconomic position and minority population
Predictors of knowledge of H1N1 infection and transmission in the U.S. population
Policymakers and public health practitioners should take specific SEP factors into consideration when implementing educational and preventive interventions promoting the health and preparedness of the population, and when designing communication campaigns during a public health emergency
Contribution of Communication Inequalities to Disparities in Human Papillomavirus Vaccine Awareness and Knowledge
Objectives. We examined the association of Internet-related communication inequalities on human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine awareness and infection knowledge. Methods. We drew data from National Cancer Institute’s 2007 Health Information National Trends Survey (n = 7674). We estimated multivariable logistic regression models to assess Internet use and Internet health information seeking on HPV vaccine awareness and infection knowledge. Results. …
Medicine (52 works) · Psychology (38 works) · Public health (35 works) · Environmental health (30 works) · Political science (29 works) · Sociology (26 works) · Nursing (22 works) · Population (18 works) · Gerontology (17 works) · Social Psychology (16 works)