Dosage is an important reframing of how we think about the challenges of communicating about health. Johnson thoughtfully uses the metaphor of pharmacological dose and demonstrates its applicability across a range of contexts, from the doctor breaking bad news to a patient, to distributed teams seeking to coordinate activity, to health promotion campaigns for behavior change. Health communicators -- whether marketing professionals, nurses and social workers, marketing practitioners, or social media bloggers -- can easily pick up lessons here from a wealth of scholarship about message development, channel selection, timing and frequency, and how to avoid the negative consequences of too much communication about a health issue. Here is a top-flight scholar offering us a new way to re-vision the challenges of professional communication.

James W. Dearing, Michigan State University

This textbook is long overdue and unprecedented in the social scientific literature. The question of how much is enough is seldom addressed in research and Johnson's book takes a critical and empirically-based examination of this question in health communication.

Thomas Feeley, Professor and Chair of Communication, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York

Citing a dearth of information available to the physician for guidance in imparting medical information to patients, Johnson presents the "dosage metaphor." With a focus on amount, frequency, sequencing, delivery system, interaction with other agents, and contraindications he provides answers to fundamental problems that all health communicators face. There are nine chapters: introduction and overview; definition and the use of metaphor; interpersonal communication; inter-professional teams; mass media; diffusion and dissemination; change; health information technology; and final analysis. Inter alia, he describes communication campaigns, new health information technologies, social media, the wisdom of crowds, and discusses the policy issues raised by the dosage metaphor. This concise and interesting book is for doctors, nurses, social workers, and marketers. There are figures, tables boxes, and a bibliography.

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