Most organizations face crisis situations that jeopardize the trust of their stakeholders. Crisis communication has become one of the most prominent areas both in practice and in public relations research. This study presents a quantitative analysis of recent scientific research in crisis communication to assess the situation and discover the main current advances in the area. Journal articles from six prominent international databases were selected: Proquest Research Library, ABI/ Inform Collection, EBSCOhost Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost Business Source Complete. EBSCOhost Communication & Mass Media Complete and Elsevier’s Science Direct Journals Complete. Specifically, a total of 143 scientific articles published between 2008 and 2018 were collected and analyzed from six international peer-reviewed journals specialized in public relations and crisis communication, as well as the main crisis management journals included in the Web of Science and Scopus: Public Relations Review, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, Corporate Communications, Journal of Public Relations Research, Journal of Communication Management and International Journal of Strategic Communication. The review of these texts led to the establishment of five hypotheses corresponding to the six stated objectives. Content analysis was used as the quantitative technique, focusing on the following elements: themes, theories, methods, results, and geocultural characteristics of the authors. The results reveal the research trends in the area over the last decade. Resumen La mayoría de las organizaciones se enfrentan a situaciones de crisis que ponen en peligro la confianza de sus grupos de interés. La comunicación de crisis se ha convertido en una de las áreas más prominentes tanto en la práctica como en la investigación de relaciones públicas. Este estudio presenta un análisis cuantitativo sobre la investigación científica reciente en comunicación de crisis, con el fin de recoger el estado y los principales avances actuales en esta área. Para ello, se han seleccionado artículos de revistas presentes en seis bases de datos internacionales destacadas: ProQuest Research Library, ABI/Inform Collection, EBSCOhost Academic Search Complete, EBSCOhost Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost Communication & Mass Media Complete y Elsevier ScienceDirect Journals Complete. En concreto, se han recogido y analizado 143 artículos científicos publicados entre 2008 y 2018 en seis revistas internacionales revisadas por pares referentes de relaciones públicas y comunicación de crisis, así como la principal de gestión de crisis, incluidas en las bases de datos de evaluación Journal Citation Reports (JCR) y Scopus-CiteScore: Public relations review, Journal of contingencies and crisis management, Corporate communications, Journal of public relations research, Journal of communication management e International journal of strategic communication. La revisión de los textos ha desembocado en el establecimiento de cinco preguntas de investigación, correspondientes a seis objetivos. La técnica cuantitativa empleada ha sido el análisis de contenido, que se ha enfocado sobre los siguientes elementos: temas, teorías, métodos, resultados y características geo-culturales de los autores. Los resultados muestran las tendencias investigadoras del área en la última década.

El cáncer es la principal causa de muerte global y la segunda de morbi-mortalidad en España. En emergencias y crisis sanitarias, los medios proporcionan información que puede condicionar la percepción pública y ayudar a los emisores especializados a comunicar estratégicamente para garantizar la prevención y la contención de enfermedades. El principal objetivo de este artículo es observar si la prensa escrita española refleja en su selección de noticias sobre el cáncer una preponderancia de aquellos tipos de cáncer con mayores tasas de incidencia y mortalidad. Mediante análisis de contenido y asignación de tópicos latentes (LDA), se estudiaron 1371 noticias sobre el cáncer publicadas entre abril de 2022 y marzo de 2023 en los tres diarios convencionales con mayor alcance semanal en línea: El País, El Mundo y La Vanguardia. Existen cánceres sobrerrepresentados mediáticamente, como la leucemia y los cerebrales, mientras que otros con mayores tasas de incidencia y mortalidad, como los de colon y próstata, tienen menos presencia. El cáncer de piel solo es mencionado en 4% de las publicaciones y presenta una subrepresentación, considerando que además es un cáncer en estado epidemiológico. Los resultados son coherentes con los estudios iberoamericanos previos y corroboran la única investigación sobre la cobertura mediática del cáncer de piel en España. A excepción de los casos de mama y pulmón, no existe correspondencia global entre la incidencia y mortalidad de los principales tipos de cáncer y su cobertura mediática, lo que puede incidir en la prevención y contención de estas enfermedades.

In the wake of recent disease outbreaks, several researchers have pointed out that Crisis and Emergency Risk Communication (CERC) model is useful for guiding strategic communication during health emergencies. It is a priority to see what role this model plays in the international scientific literature. A systematic review of 90 articles published in eight international databases between 2011 and 2021 was conducted. The results confirm that CERC implementation, quantification and systematisation have increased considerably since the start of COVID-19. The statistical and network analysis announces the preponderance of four emerging clusters -intangibles, case studies, message content analysis and the role of social media-. The study identifies some challenges for public relations research and practice during future health emergencies like skin cancer.

This article focuses on the role of information disorders in media coverage of cancer as a growing public health problem on both sides of the Atlantic. Taking the examples of Chile and Spain, we analysed news (n = 5522) published by major digital newspaper outlets in both countries between 2020 and 2022 to explore the elements of contextual information disorders, the over- and/or under-representation of mentions of sources and actors, and major latent topics in both journalistic systems. To achieve these objectives, we employed topic modelling and coherence techniques. The results revealed a high number of references to institutional, administrative, and political sources and actors, followed by mentions of issuers of strategic communication and, less frequently, patients’ associations. The discourses differed in their underlying topics, with risk factors and psycho-social factors being the most frequently addressed in the Spanish press and geo-political and institutional health contexts being the most frequently mentioned in the Chilean press. The topic of advances in research, however, was common in both journalistic systems. This article closes by identifying future challenges in health communication.

Growing evidence shows there is a spread of skin cancer as a global epidemic, making communication on prevention a public health priority. However, the reality contrasts with the high dispersion of literature. The main objective of this study was to gather and organise the literature to facilitate interdisciplinary research and future meta-studies. A bibliometric analysis of 53 research articles indexed in Web of Science (WoS) and Academic Search Complete (EBSCO) between 2011 and 2021 was conducted. The most prolific author was David B. Buller, connector of the two co-authorship networks identified, which had 2019 as the relay point. The United States was the country with the highest number of publications (67.9%), mostly applying the Health Belief Model (HBM). The sample population was largely adult, with a slight increase in interest in studying young people and university students from 2015 onwards. The most analysed topics were risk perception and media literacy, confirming the focus on prevention messages and public education. It is recommended that the authors define the lines of research, update the studies towards the analysis of social media and new media, and increase the focus on adolescents and young people, the target audience for skin cancer prevention messages.