QHC Advisory Board members' perspectives on the value of a journal like Qualitative Health Communication (QHC)
“Despite the increasing prominence of qualitative approaches to research, health communication research is still dominated by quantitative methods. While quantitative methods help establish generalizability across a population, they cannot account for the texture and substance of the lived experience, which is the realm of qualitative research methods.
While there are other journals dedicated to qualitative health research in general, the focus of QHC is uniquely on the role of qualitative methods in health communication. This is important because health communication is a varied field that contributes generalized knowledge about the processes and products of communication in health promotion, education, and especially health outcomes. A journal like QHC contributes an essential component by taking up specific parts of the communication process to show qualitatively how they matter.
QHC is virtually unique in its position internationally. There are very few other journals that address the role of qualitative research in health communication, and these journals focus more on medicine and healthcare not health communication specifically. Health communication is related to, but different from medicine and healthcare, as its scope ranges from public campaigns to clinician-patient to critical approaches. As mixed methods and implementation science continue rise in prominence internationally, having a space focused specifically on qualitative approaches helps to push the science of high quality qualitative approaches to health communication research is ever more important”.
Christopher J. Koenig, Associate Professor, San Francisco State University, USA
”The journal Qualitative Health Communication is much needed since this growing field is heavily dominated by journals relying mainly, if not solely, on quantitative methods. After contributing to this field for almost 25 years, I still find it difficult to name more than a few outlets that would welcome qualitative research without questioning the approach”.
Karen Korning Zethsen, Professor, Aarhus University, Denmark
”The field of health communication is very important to patients, clinicians and policymakers alike. The qualitative study of health communication offers a deeper understanding of interactions relating to healthcare allowing a deeper understanding of healthcare, from accessing care, receiving care, delivering care and interacting with health services. It includes the crucial work relating to preventative health and goes right though to end of life care. Despite this breadth of coverage and the specific insights it can provide, it tends to be overlooked by mainstream journals where the methodology is not understood and the relevance of the work to patients not fully appreciated. Curating a journal which focuses on qualitative health communication not only creates a forum for this work but allows for its development over time.
Despite this breadth of coverage and the specific insights it can provide, it tends to be overlooked by mainstream journals where the methodology is not understood and the relevance of the work to patients not fully appreciated. Curating a journal which focuses on qualitative health communication not only creates a forum for this work but allows for its development over time”.
Helen Atherton, Associate Professor, Warwick Medical School, UK
“I direct an interdisciplinary group of health communication researchers (Applied Research on Communication in Health, University of Otago, New Zealand). We specialise in the use of mixed qualitative methods including the fine-grained analysis of recorded health interactions, narrative interviews, direct observation, and longitudinal ethnographic studies. Over the past two decades, it has consistently been challenging to find suitable journals in which to publish our research in the way we would ideally like to present it. Whilst there are certainly several quality journals that focus on or include health communication and/or qualitative research in their scope, none focus solely on qualitative health communication research. Health communication journals are typically restricted in terms of article length (thus making it difficult to report properly on qualitative studies), and others tend to have a particular disciplinary focus such as medical sociology or health promotion. Qualitative Health Communication is therefore a very welcome addition to our publication options, as it has a broad disciplinary scope, and provides for much more in-depth critical commentary and presentation of qualitative data analyses. In just the first two issues, it has already published high quality research on an interesting range of topics, showcasing an impressive range of qualitative methods. The fact that it is an open access journal is the icing on the cake as far as I am concerned, as I can freely provide references to my medical and professional colleagues who work outside academia”.
Maria Stubbe, Associate Professor, University of Otago, New Zealand
“Qualitative Health Communication is a unique and important venue for the publication of qualitative research exploring the communicative dynamics of health and illness. The journal is unique in its commitment to publishing *qualitative* research on health communication. And this is important, since the niceties of such contextually rich communication can often only be fully apprehended when viewed through a qualitative, context-sensitive lens”.
Dr Gavin Brookes, Lancaster University, UK
