Health and Risk Communication

In a new paper published in Human Communication Research, researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center and the Ohio State University show that gun injury rates are a more sensitive indicator of the trend in gun violence than gun homicide rates.

A new study suggests that using emotionally evocative images on cigarette warning labels such as rotting teeth and a diseased lung is important in making the labels more memorable and effective in conveying the risks of smoking. The study addresses a key point raised in 2012 by the U.S. courts, which ruled that the pictorial labels were unconstitutional in part because they "did not convey any information at all."

Year after year, the suicide rate is at its lowest in the United States during the holiday season, but nearly three-quarters of U.S. newspaper stories linking suicide and the holidays during the 2013-2014 season incorrectly said the opposite.