The Center for Health and Risk Communication at the University of Georgia advances knowledge about the role of communication processes in enhancing human health and safety.
What We Do
- Functions as an institutional, regional, and international contact point for University of Georgia outreach in health and risk communication research, training, and service
- Offers venues for University of Georgia faculty, staff, and students to learn of new developments in research on health and risk communication
- serves as a clearinghouse for information and expertise regarding health and risk communication
- Promotes development of research projects and of proposals for external support for such projects; in particular, promotes interdisciplinary collaborations
- Offers opportunities for mentoring for emerging scholars in health and risk communication
- Provides limited staff support and physical plant for selected research projects
Core Principles
- CHRC is committed to scholarship that is consequential. We seek to exert impact on individual behaviors, institutional practices, as well as public policies. Service to the broader community is integral to our research.
- Communication, human health, and safety are the domain of no single academic discipline. CHRC therefore capitalizes on interdisciplinary synergies.
- CHRC embraces a broad definition of health and safety. Our purview encompasses communication to reduce violence and environmental insecurity as well as disease-specific prevention strategies.
- Individuals’ health and safety are embedded in social realities. Inequities in health status often mirror social inequities. CHRC is especially committed to communication research that aims to reduce health disparities among diverse communities.
- Likewise, CHRC is committed to enriching diversity in background and perspective within its own ranks.
- Effects of communication on human health and safety involve complex interdependencies among messages and channels. CHRC encourages research that examines interactions between interpersonal and mediated communication and between new technologies and social relationships.
