Interpersonal health communication theories

Abstract

The process of health communication has in many ways traditionally been studied as an interpersonal context. Some of the later chapters in this volume will focus on contexts that are more likely to be mediated, but three theories are used frequently enough to study the interpersonal dimensions of health communication that the editors elected to have experts on each of them describe the theories separately. The three theories are communication accommodation theory, communication privacy management theory, and the theory of negotiated morality. All these theories are dyadic in focus. We combine them into one chapter to allow comparison and contrast, but all are equally useful and must be included in a volume such as this. None of these theories is applied exclusively in the health communication context, but all have seen productive application within it.