Constructing the Roma audience: public health communication and intervention in contemporary Romania

This study investigated health promotion materials targeting a group historically conceived as problematic, the Romanian Roma. It examined how recent campaigns of interventions, funded by the United States and Western non-profits, understand their audience and how such constructions relate to larger political dynamics in Europe. Focusing on how practitioners conceptualized the Roma audience, as entities to be communicated with and about, in order to affect their behavior, it provides an insight regarding health communication as a political endeavor, as well as current institutionalization of cultural and ethnic differences in Romania. The analysis revealed cause for concern and also evidence of progressive thinking.