After over two decades of preparation, the department of communication studies at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), a national award-winning program, launched a new student specialization in Health and Wellness Communication (HWC) in spring 2022. The HWC concentration is available to undergraduates enrolled full time.

The innovative track boasts several faculty teaching courses and conducting research in health communication, collaborating with students in all scholarship phases and supporting student employment and graduate program aspirations. TCNJ’s department of communication studies ranks number one in New Jersey and received the 2013 National Communication Association Rex Mix Program of Excellence Award as the nation’s best undergraduate communication studies department.

In the HWC specialization, students select their own topics and teams to explore a rich array of subjects while mentored by experienced professors.  For courses in global health and risk communication campaigns and international communication, students explore issues including COVID-19, climate change, child brides, HIV/AIDS,    water contamination, traditional healers, human trafficking and child labor. US health and risk communication campaign courses investigate health literacy, public health emergency/crisis communication, universal health care, women’s reproductive rights, gun safety, PTSD and opioid abuse.

For interpersonal health and lifespan courses, students learn about patient-provider communication, communal coping with long-term and terminal diseases, end-of-life conversations among family members, sexual conversation strategies shared by parents and children, and family stress reduction. Courses in emerging media technology address telehealth, virtual reality and other immersive media, interactive video games for health, and mobile diagnostics and artificial intelligence.  Other topics include social media health misinformation, digital health search and eHealth literacy, online social support communities and social media health campaigns.

In the HWC specialization, creative professors teach engaging courses and mentor student-faculty research projects. Building its foundation over 24 years, HWC founder Professor Dr. John C. Pollock co-authored papers, articles, chapters, and a book with over 450 students. His senior-edited 2021 book  “COVID-19 in International Media: Global Pandemic Perspectives” included a chapter co-authored by six students, one awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to Sweden, others accepted to leading graduate schools such as Johns Hopkins and Columbia. Associate Professor Dr. Yifeng Hu investigates new media health communication and emerging media technologies, organizing several students to develop “Fresh Start”, a narrative immersion video game educating first year college students about mindful drinking, yielding a presentation at the prestigious biannual national University of Kentucky Health Communication Conference in April 2020. TCNJ educates student athletes and other student groups with “Fresh Start” as a modern program for alcohol awareness. 

In his courses on interpersonal health communication and health communication campaigns, Assistant Professor Dr. Yachao Li often co-authors with students on the role of health communication in reducing minority health disparities and COVID-19 vaccination information or misinformation, in particular transmitted by social media.  Department chair and Associate Professor, Dr. Keli Fazio, partners with students investigating relational and health stressors impacting mental, emotional, and physical well-being, as well as ways communication can buffer negative health stressors, such as the traumatic loss of a family member to the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. Assistant Professor Dr. Eugene Cho conducts research on customizable voice assistants, finding that Voice Assistant similarity (with subject’s own voice) and subject customization can persuade unvaccinated individuals to consider getting vaccinated.

According to Dean of the School of Arts and Communication Lorna Johnson-Frizell, also a Professor of Communication Studies, “I am delighted that the health and wellness communication strength long manifest in successful student-faculty collaboration has been formally recognized in an official Health and Wellness Communication specialization. Our new HWC concentration is clearly aligned with national aging trends, increased federal healthcare spending, and occupational opportunities in New Jersey’s flourishing pharmaceutical industries, benefiting students, faculty, and the state’s entire population.”