Abstract
The interdisciplinary intersections between communication science and health-related fields are pervasive, with numerous differences in regard to epistemology, career planning, funding perspectives, educational goals, and cultural orientations. This article identifies and elaborates on these challenges with illustrative examples. Furthermore, concrete suggestions for future scholarship are recommended to facilitate compatible, coherent, and interdisciplinary health communication inquiry. The authors hope that this article helps current and future generations of health communication scholars to make more informed decisions when facing some of the challenges discussed in this article so that they will be able to seize the interdisciplinary and international potential of this unique and important field of study.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 955-961 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Health Communication |
| Volume | 29 |
| Issue number | 10 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 2014 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Health care scholars in the United States are often hired via soft funding structures. Therefore, they experience strong pressure to receive grant funding. Health communication scholars often rely on a close collaboration with health care researchers in the fields of medicine, public health, and nursing. Therefore, their research success also may depend on grant funding from health-related fields.