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News

Speaker to discuss benefits of health 
communication for minorities

Cougar News Staff

Mohan Dutta, associate professor at Purdue University, will discuss how the academic health communication world is handling health issues among under-represented groups, such as minorities and women, from noon to 1:15 p.m. today in the Rockwell Pavilion at M.D. Anderson Library.

Communication professor Jim Query said the talk will also help students become better health advocates for their family and friends.

"They would learn how communication scholars are trying to reach out to underserved populations and help preserve the quality of life," Query said.

"(Dutta's) basically looking at health communication, which is how people communicate in health situations, and then we tie that to specific health outcomes," he said. "For example, one of those would be how you communicate with your primary health provider, and that would be linked to your satisfaction (and) be linked to your compliance."

Good health communication improves relationships and confidence in health care providers and helps spread important medical information, Query said.

"It also includes health campaigns, and that's one of (Dutta's) specialties," Query said.

Another prevalent method of gathering information about medical decisions is by simple word-of-mouth among friends, Query said.

"People make decisions quite frequently based only on that information," he said.

Query said Dutta's talk is a part of UH's recently implemented undergraduate degree in health communication and soon to be approved graduate degree.

"The graduate (degree) should be approved, hopefully by January," he said.

Dutta is also the director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Communication at Purdue University.

All majors are invited to attend the talk by the UH School of Communication.

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