Health Professions/Occupations

Health communication scholars investigate health occupations and professions to provide recommendations that benefit workers and their constituents. This research spans clinical, administrative, governmental, and technological contexts of work. Health work exists within and in response to broader institutions of control, and communication helps bridge, define, and push back on its relationship to them. This entry provides a summary of how health occupations and professions have been studied within health communication scholarship. Studies of health workers have focused especially on work in clinical settings, particularly on how membership in, attachment to, and beliefs relevant to occupations influence their work. Although much healthcare work and especially those occupations studied by health communication scholars are generally considered professions, studies have also illuminated professionalizing processes in which workers negotiate and defend their claims to specific knowledge, what counts as the work of the occupation, and the occupation's legitimacy. Research topics include the connections between occupational and organizational processes, professional identity and identification, occupational and professional outcomes, interprofessional communication, and the influence of occupational factors in technology and organizational change processes.