The Handbook of Mental Health Communication

A comprehensive overview of theory and research at the intersection of mass communication and mental health

The Handbook of Mental Health Communication provides timely and authoritative coverage of the impact of message-based mental health promotion. Positioning mental health communication in the context of socio-cultural causes of mental illness, the Handbook underscores that understanding communication effects on mental health outcomes begins with recognizing how people experiencing mental illness process relevant information about their own mental health.

Organized into 33 chapters, the Handbook synthesizes public health, psychopathology, and mass communication scholarship into a single resource. Throughout the book, nearly 100 leading scholars collectively translate biased information attention, interpretation, and memory in mental illness to real-world implications for the use of mass communication to optimize and safeguard mental health messaging.

The first book of its kind to offer a transdisciplinary overview of mass communication approaches to mental health, the Handbook of Mental Health Communication:

• Addresses key areas of health communication such as information processing, digital media, special populations, and measurement methods
• Provides systematic guidance on reducing the stigma of mental illness symptomatology
• Offers clear descriptions of promising mass communication strategies for mental health promotion
• Reviews approaches for informing the research agenda on mental health mass communication
• Includes practical strategies for designing and measuring persuasive health messages

The Handbook of Mental Health Communication is the perfect textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in public health, communication, psychology, public affairs, and medical programs, and an invaluable resource for scholars, researchers, lecturers, and all health communication practitioners.