Governments throughout the world can learn many critical lessons from examining instances of ineffective communication with the public during the global coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) pandemic. Ineffective government communication has resulted in a great deal of public confusion and misunderstanding, as well as serious errors in responding to this evolving health threat, leading to disastrous health and social outcomes for the public and prolonging the pandemic, especially within the United States. This article uses systems theory as a template for analyzing government communication in the United States during the COVID‐19 pandemic, providing governments with recommendations for establishing effective health risk communication strategies for use with the public. The communication strategies offered here promote the delivery of relevant, accurate, and sensitive information to key public groups, minimizing communication noise to guide desirable coordinated actions. These communication strategies can be applied locally, nationally, and internationally.

This study used social network theory to explore the role of social support and social networks in health information–seeking behavior among Korean American (KA) adults. A descriptive qualitative study using a web-based online survey was conducted from January 2013 to April 2013 in the U.S. The survey included open-ended questions about health information–seeking experiences in personal social networks and their importance in KA adults. Themes emerging from a constant comparative analysis of the narrative comments by 129 of the 202 respondents were analyzed. The sample consisted of 129 KA adults, 64.7% female, with a mean age of 33.2 (SD = 7.7). Friends, church members, and family members were the important network connections for KAs to obtain health information. KAs looked for a broad range of health information from social network members, from recommendations and reviews of hospitals/doctors to specific diseases or health conditions. These social networks were regarded as important for KAs because there were no language barriers, social network members had experiences similar to those of other KAs, they felt a sense of belonging with those in their networks, the network connections promoted increased understanding of different health care systems of the U.S. system, and communication with these network connections helped enhance feelings of being physically and mentally healthy. This study demonstrates the important role that social support and personal social networks perform in the dissemination of health information for a large ethnic population, KAs, who confront distinct cultural challenges when seeking health information in the U.S. Data from this study also illustrate the cultural factors that influence health information acquisition and access to social support for ethnic minorities. This study provides practical insights for professionals in health information services, namely, that social networks can be employed as a channel for disseminating health information to immigrants.

The decades surrounding the turn of the millennium will be remembered as a time of extraordinary opportunity in cancer communication. In 1990, the number of age-adjusted deaths due to cancer in the U.S. population began a slow steady decline after a century of disparaging increase. Reasons for this decline have been attributed to long-awaited successes in primary prevention, especially related to tobacco, and early detection for cervical, breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers, as well as advances in treatment. This was also a time of unparalleled change in the cancer communication environment. Scientific health discoveries escalated with the completion of the Human Genome project in 2003, and penetration of the Internet made health information available directly to consumers. To seize the opportunity afforded by these changes, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) launched the Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS). Fielded for the first time in 2003, the HINTS is a nationally representative, general population survey of noninstitutionalized adults in the United States 18 years and older. This supplement contains a compilation of original research conducted using the data generated by the first administration of the HINTS telephone interviews. Covering topics in cancer knowledge, cancer cognition, risk perception, and information seeking, the articles represent an interdisciplinary view of cancer communication at the turn of the millennium and offer insight into the road ahead.