Affiliated Scholars
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| Noel Brewer (ntb1 at unc dot edu) Assistant Professor Department of Health Behavior and Health Education School of Public Health, UNC-Chapel Hill Ph.D., Rutgers University |  |
| Noel T. Brewer is a research scientist who studies medical decision making related to vaccination and medical testing. His ongoing research studies examine decisions about getting HPV vaccine, how to communicate results of genomic risk tests, and the effects of false-positive mammograms. His work has appeared in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Cognition and Health Psychology. | |
James L. Knight Professor |  |
| Jane Brown is an expert on how the media are used by and influence adolescents' health and has studied the influence of the media on adolescents' tobacco and alcohol use, aggressive and sexual behavior. She is co-editor or co-author of four books, including Sexual Teens, Sexual Media. Her research has been published in adolescent as well as communication journals, including the Journal of Adolescent Health, Pediatrics, Journal of Communication, and Mass Communication and Society. | |
Marci Campbell Associate Professor Department of Nutrition School of Public Health, UNC-Chapel Hill Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |  |
| Dr. Campbell's research focuses on nutrition behavior change for health promotion and disease prevention. She is currently investigating health communication strategies aimed at reducing risk factors for cancer and chronic diseases in minority and underserved communities: 1) effectiveness of computer- generated, individually tailored nutrition education programs on dietary assessment and psychosocial theories of behavior change in promoting dietary changes for disease prevention, 2) use of a lay-health-adviser approach to increase social support for behavior changes; 3) impact of organization and environmental approaches to encouraging healthy behaviors. Dr. Campbell is a member of the American Dietetic Association, the American Public Health Association, and is program leader for prevention and control at the Lineberger Cancer Center. | |
Lecturer |  |
| Joan Cates’ research examines the role of the media in shaping public awareness, policies and practices related to sexual health. As principal investigator of the American Youth and Sexually Transmitted Diseases Project, funded by the William T. Grant Foundation (2002-2006), she was responsible for the publication of the first national summary of the scope and impact of STDs in youth in a 2004 report, Our Voices, Our Lives, Our Futures: Youth and Sexually Transmitted Diseases. Winner of a 2005 IMPACT award for graduate research at UNC-Chapel Hill, Dr. Cates’ publications include articles in American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Women's Health Issues, Sex Education and the Journal of Rural Health (in press). | |
Assistant Professor |  |
| Dr. DeWalt is a general internist and health services researcher. Dr. DeWalt actively researches interventions to improve care for people with low literacy and has planned and completed clinical trials of interventions for diabetes and heart failure. Dr. DeWalt took a leading role in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality evidence report on Literacy and Health Outcomes which was performed by the RTI-UNC Evidence-based Practice Center. He is performing a multi-site clinical trial of a self-management program for heart failure. He is also principal investigator for the Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System. | |
Elizabeth Dougall Assistant Professor School of Journalism and Mass Communication, UNC-Chapel Hill Ph.D., Queensland University of Technology |  |
| Elizabeth Dougall has attracted national and international recognition for her research applying the analysis of media coverage to track organization-activist relationships and the public opinion environment surrounding industry issues, including the banking and global pharmaceutical industries. Dougall's extensive industry experience includes media advocacy, issues management and crisis communication for organizations in Australia, the United Kingdom, Europe and Canada. In May 2005, Dougall's research was featured in the national trade PR Week, as part of the "new science" of public relations. She teaches graduate and undergraduate classes in media advocacy and related topics. | |
Carol Golin Research Assistant Professor Department of Health Behavior and Health Education School of Public Health, UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine, UNC-Chapel Hill MD, UNC-Chapel Hill |  |
| Carol Golin is engaged in research on the development and assessment of behavioral interventions to enhance compliance and health care for persons living with HIV/AIDS and access to care for incarcerated persons. In addition, she studies the influence of patient-provider communication on health outcomes and is particularly interested in the effects of enhanced patient participation in medical decision-making. She is also interested in behavioral interventions to prevent the secondary spread of HIV. | |
Claudia Gollop Associate Professor School of Information and Library Science, UNC-Chapel Hill Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh |  |
| Claudia Gollop teaches in the areas of information resources and services, health sciences information, public libraries and library/information services to specific populations. She earned a Ph.D. in Library and Information Science at the University of Pittsburgh and an M.L.S. degree from Columbia University. She spent well over a decade as a library/information professional in public, special, and academic libraries. Her current research interests revolve around issues of consumer health information (CHI) acquisition and dissemination and specific populations, older adults in particular. | |
Assistant Professor |  |
| Melanie Green is a social psychologist who studies the role of narratives in persuasion, including health persuasion and cancer communication. She is co-editor of two books: Narrative Impact: Social and Cognitive Foundations, and Persuasion: Psychological Insights and Perspectives (Second Edition). Her research has been published in journals such as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and Journal of Communication. | |
Stephanie W. Haas Professor School of Information and Library Science, UNC-Chapel Hill Ph.D., University of Pittsburgh |  |
| Stephanie Haas studies the sublanguages and terminology used within and between communities of experts, as well as between experts and non-experts. Research on the language used in emergency department patient records has appeared in Academic Emergency Medicine and the Journal of Biomedical Informatics. Other studies of barriers to finding information posed by terminology have appeared in the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology and Computer. | |
Assistant Professor |  |
| Heidi Hennink-Kaminski teaches advertising, marketing, and social marketing courses in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Her research focuses on social marketing, health communication, and ethical issues associated with physician marketing. Prior to transitioning to academia, Hennink-Kaminski accumulated 15 years of professional experience in senior marketing communications roles in both corporate and agency positions. She has authored book chapters on telecommunications marketing and transnational advertising and most recently published in Social Marketing Quarterly, the Journal of Current Issues and Research in Advertising, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly, and the Proceedings of the American Academy of Advertising. | |
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| Michael Hoefges teaches and researches in the area of media law and policy specializing in the regulation of advertising and marketing communications related to a variety of products and services including alcohol, tobacco, gambling, professional medical services, and prescription drugs. His articles have appeared in the Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal, Communication Law & Policy, Hastings Communication & Entertainment Law Journal, Journal of Marketing & Public Policy, Notre Dame Journal of Legislation and William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal. Twice, West Publishing has selected one of his articles for republication in the annual First Amendment Law Handbook as among the most significant First Amendment publications of the year. Hoefges is a former practicing attorney and currently serves on the National Advertising Review Board. He is the founding co-coordinator of a dual degree program between the UNC Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication, and Law, and works with the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy. | |
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| Kristin Ito is a general internist and pediatrician specializing in adolescent health care and the medical director of Wake Teen, a non-profit adolescent clinic located in Raleigh. Her research interests include the use of interactive technology and multimedia in health behavior interventions and the effect of mass media on health. She has developed and conducted research on the effectiveness of an interactive CD-ROM intervention aimed at the prevention of sexually transmitted infections in female adolescents. | |
Senior Research Scientist |  |
| Christine Jackson's primary research interest is child socialization processes as they relate to the development of risk and protective attributes during childhood and into adolescence. Her research examines parenting practices and media use practices as they affect early onset of alcohol and tobacco use, sexual risk outcomes, and cardiovascular risk outcomes, including obesity and physical activity. Dr. Jackson also has a specific interest in developing and testing an integrated model of persuasive message design for public health intervention. | |
Sriram "Sri" Kalyanaraman Associate Professor and Director Media Effects Laboratory School of Journalism and Mass Communication, UNC-Chapel Hill Ph.D., Penn State University |  |
| Sri Kalyanaraman's primary research pertains to examining the social and psychological effects of new media and communication technologies. His secondary interests include information processing of persuasive health messages, and marketing aspects of sex and violence in media. His research has been published in leading mass communication journals including Communication Research, Journal of Communication, Journal of Advertising, and Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media. | |
Tom Linden, MD (linden at unc dot edu) Glaxo Wellcome Distinguished Professor of Medical Journalism School of Journalism and Mass Communication, UNC-Chapel Hill MD, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine |  |
| As director of the medical and science journalism program at UNC-CH, Dr. Linden teaches courses in medical and science journalism for both undergraduate and graduate students and administers one of the nation's first master's programs in medical journalism. Dr. Linden also is author of The New York Times Reader: Health and Medicine, published by CQ Press which will be available in early 2009. The book is an anthology of health and medical stories from the New York Times and includes interviews with five NYT reporters and commentary by Dr. Linden. Dr. Linden also is co-author of Dr. Tom Linden's Guide to Online Medicine, one of the first consumer guides for medical resources on the Internet. He also is medical anchor for Journal Watch Audio, distributed bimonthly by the Audio Digest Foundation for the Massachusetts Medical Society. Prior to coming to UNC in 1997, Dr. Linden was a medical reporter for CNBC, KRON-TV (San Francisco) and Fox-11 (Los Angeles). He also has worked as a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times. From 1991 to 1993 he was co-anchor of Physicians' Journal Update, the flagship news program for the Lifetime Medical Television Network. | |
Laura Linnan Associate Professor Department of Health Behavior and Health Education School of Public Health, UNC-Chapel Hill ScD, Harvard University |  |
| Laura Linnan, ScD, CHES, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, UNC-Chapel Hill School of Public Health, with a joint appointment in the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Linnan completed doctoral studies at Harvard University, where her dissertation focused on gaps in knowledge, theory and practice related to applied worksite health promotion research. She is particularly interested in the relationship between place and health. She received a MS in Public Health Education from The University of Toledo, and a BS in Health Education and Sports Medicine from Indiana State University. | |
Professor |  |
| Dr. Lipkus, a social psychologist, is a Professor at Duke University School of Nursing. His research explores how persuasive communications, especially those that affect perceptions of health threat, motivate behavior change in such areas as cancer screening and smoking cessation. His research also includes medical decision-making. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Health Communication, Health Psychology and Psychology and Health. | |
Professor |  |
| Gary Marchionini conducts research in human-information interaction, interface design and testing, and digital libraries. He heads the Interaction Design Laboratory at SILS and is author of a book titled Information Seeking in Electronic Environments. His Ph.D. is from Wayne State University in mathematics education with an emphasis on educational computing. His personal website can be found at http://ils.unc.edu/~march | |
Joanne Gard Marshall Alumni Distinguished Professor School of Information and Library Science, UNC-Chapel Hill Ph.D., University of Toronto |  |
| Joanne Marshall served as Dean of the School of Information and Library Science from 1999 to 2004. Prior to 1999, Joanne was a faculty member at the University of Toronto, where she taught courses in health sciences information resources, management of corporate and other specialized information centers, research methods and online information retrieval. Before assuming her faculty appointment at the University of Toronto, Joanne worked for 15 years as a librarian in various academic and health sciences libraries. She has received a number of awards including the Medical Library Association (MLA) doctoral fellowship, the MLA Eliot Prize for the most significant research in medical librarianship for 1982 and 1992, and the Award of Outstanding Achievement from the Canadian Health Libraries Association in 1992. From the Special Libraries Association she received the H.W. Wilson Award in 1997, the John Cotton Dana Award in 1998 and the Factiva Leadership Award in 2004. During 2004-2005 she served as President of the Medical Library Association. She is a fellow of both the Medical Library Association and the Special Libraries Association. | |
Assistant Professor | |
Dr. Mayer is an advanced practice oncology nurse who has consulted with organizations on issues to improve cancer care with over 30 years of cancer nursing practice, education, research, and management experience. Dr. Mayer earned a Ph.D. from the University of Utah, her MSN from Yale University, her BSN from Excelsior College, her Nurse Practitioner Certificate from the University of Maryland, and her diploma from Pennsylvania Hospital School of Nursing. She is past president of the Oncology Nursing Society, was a member of the National Cancer Institutes National Cancer Advisory Board (a Presidential appointment) and Board of Scientific Advisors. Mayer was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. Prior to joining UNC, Mayer was co-founder and Chief Medical Officer of Cancer Source and a research scientist at the Tufts-New England Medical Center Institute for Clinical Research and Health Policy Studies. She is THE Editor for the Oncology Nursing Society's Clinical Journal of Oncology Nursing. Mayer has published over 70 articles, book chapters and lectures internationally on oncology and oncology nursing issues. | |
Cathy L. Melvin (melvin at schsr dot unc dot edu) Senior Research Fellow and Director of Child Health Services Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research Research Associate Professor Department of Maternal and Child Health School of Public Health, UNC-Chapel Hill Ph.D., UNC-Chapel Hill MPH, UNC-Chapel Hill |  |
| Dr. Cathy Melvin serves as Principal Investigator and director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded Smoke-Free Families (SFF) National Dissemination Office (NDO) and as faculty director of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Dissemination Core. Dr. Melvin’s research interests include dissemination and dissemination research, translation of research into practice, health systems change, the application of quality improvement approaches to systems change, particularly in the adoption and use of tobacco treatment guidelines and tobacco control and prevention, especially for pregnant and parenting smokers. | |
Associate Professor |  |
| Dr. Pignone's research is focused on chronic disease prevention and treatment, as well on physician-patient communication and decision making in primary care settings. His main areas of interest include heart disease prevention, colorectal cancer screening, and disease management for common chronic illnesses such as diabetes, depression, heart failure, and chronic pain. He has conducted research examining the role of literacy in physician-patient communication and its effect on health outcomes, including racial/ethnic disparities, in patients with chronic illnesses. He has developed and tested interventions to mitigate literacy-related disparities and to improve the use of appropriate preventive services. His current research focuses on the development, testing, and dissemination of patient-directed decision aids to improve clinical decision making for a range of health issues, including colon cancer screening and heart disease prevention. | |
Kurt Ribisl Associate Professor Department of Health Behavior and Health Education School of Public Health, UNC-Chapel Hill Ph.D., Michigan State University |  |
| Kurt Ribisl's primary research interests are in the areas of tobacco control policy and information technology (e.g., the Internet, Geographic Information Systems [GIS]). Specifically, he has studied tobacco industry marketing strategies in retail outlets, interventions to reduce youth access to tobacco, and portrayals of smoking on the World Wide Web. He has also examined whether Internet cigarette vendors are complying with tax reporting laws and whether they are taking adequate precautions to prevent illegal tobacco sales to minors. He teaches a course at UNC entitled eHealth. Dr. Ribisl has a joint appointment at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. | |
LaHoma Smith Romocki Assistant Professor Department of Public Health Education – North Carolina Central University Ph.D., UNC-Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communication MPH, UNC-Chapel Hill School of Public Health, Health Education |  |
| Dr. Romocki is Interim Chair of the department at NCCU, with an adjunct appointment at the UNC School of Public Health. Dr. Romocki's background is developing and implementing global, national, and statewide health communication and training programs. Her research interests are e-health, health literacy and health disparities and she served on the N.C. Institute of Medicine and Public Health's Task Force on Health Literacy. Dr. Romocki was just awarded a grant from the National Library of Medicine and United Negro College Fund to study the utilization of online health and medical resources in minority communities in North Carolina. | |
Assistant Professor of Medicine | |
| Dr. Sheridan's research is focused on chronic disease prevention and physician - patient communication in primary care settings. Her main areas of interest include heart disease prevention and prostate cancer screening. She has conducted research examining the role of shared decision-making in screening and chemoprevention, how well physicians and patients understand various presentations of risk, and the effects of literacy on health outcomes. Dr. Sheridan is a research fellow at the Cecil Sheps Center for Health Services Research and the Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. | |
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| Betsy Sleath's research focuses on: (a) physician-patient communication and (b) ethnic/racial differences in medication use. Her work in this area has been funded by NEI, NHLBI, NIA, NIMH, AHRQ, and the Bayer Institute for Health Communication. Dr. Sleath is currently principal investigator on a 1.6 million dollar grant from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute that is the examining the relationship between pediatrician, caregiver, and child communication during pediatric asthma visits and child health outcomes. She is also principal investigator on a 1.8 million dollar grant from the National Eye Institute that is examining how provider-patient communication impacts patient outcomes when patients are newly diagnosed with glaucoma and started on medication. Dr. Sleath serves on the editorial boards of /Patient Education and Counseling and the International Journal of Pharmacy Practice/. She is a member of the FDA's advisory committee on risk communication. | |
Dulcie Straughan |
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| Dulcie Straughan heads the public relations sequence in the School. A member of the faculty since 1990, Straughan won a Tanner award for excellence in undergraduate teaching in 1995 and the School's David Brinkley teaching excellence award. She has a number of years of professional experience in public relations, primarily in government public information, as well as corporate and agency experience. Her research interests include public relations history, agenda setting and agenda building. | |
Deborah Tate Assistant Professor Department of Health Behavior and Health Education Department of Nutrition School of Public Health, UNC-Chapel Hill Ph.D., Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University |  |
| Deborah Tate's research focuses on developing innovative obesity treatments using technology and informatics. Her interest involves using both human counselors to guide behavior change via e-mail/chat and "virtual" counselors with tailored feedback for adults, adolescents, and families. Her work has been published in leading journals such as JAMA, and the New England Journal of Medicine. She has received grants from the NIH, ADA, and other foundations. | |
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| Barbara Wildemuth's research interests focus on people's use of information and information technologies, including information and technologies related to their health. Her recent research projects have included studies of people's need for and interest in personal health records; medical students' use of a factual database in microbiology; and a computerized presentation of a health maintenance/risk assessment questionnaire that adapts to the patient's literacy level and computer skills. Her teaching responsibilities include courses in user interface design, systems analysis and design, information ethics, and various aspects of research methodology. | |
