Media & Health

Most people's interactions with public health are through media, like info on websites. Or TV ads. Or newspaper stories. Or social media graphics. So it's crucial to understand how media work and how we use them. I'm interested most in how health organizations and scientists use media.

Research

I've done research on the role of social media in public heaalth. So far, I've described how health organizations use different platforms:

• Health agencies' use of Twitter. In: Journal of Medical Internet Research.
• Social media use by community organizations. In: BMC Public Health.

I have also done work to bridge public health with media studies:

• LGBTQ+ adolescent health and media. A review chapter. In: Encyclopedia of Child and Adolescent Health.
• A People's Guide to Precision Medicine. A collaborative public health zine. Part of my master's thesis in media studies.

Outreach

I have a background in studio digital art and animation. I like to use these skills to discuss important topics. Here are some highlights.

Radical Hope Podcast

I made a podcast mini series for the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH). As an AJPH Student Think Tank member, I wanted to highlight student voices online and student authors at the journal.

Party's Over Vlog

I made a vlog series with the Boston Congress of Public Health (BCPH). As a BCPH Thought Leader Fellow, I wanted to draw lessons from media studies to imagine a new future for public health.

A Bodega

I majored in art as a college student. For my senior thesis I made an animated documentary about the food for sale as a corner store in Lawrnece, Massachusetts.

This helped me bring discussions of health equity and food access to arts spaces at film festivals around the country. The National Library of Medicine also featured it in their "Visualizing Health Equity" exhibit.

Teaching

I was a Teaching Fellow for two terms of a health communication course at Harvard. This included a remote term and an in-person term. I helped students apply communication theory to campaigns they planned. This helped them figure out how to target campaigns and assess them. This also helped them recognize the limits of mass communication to improve public health.

I also designed and taught a mini course at Harvard through the January@GSAS program. “Playing with Health Communication” introduced students to media theory through playful formats like parlor games and show-and-tell. We then applied these theories to critique real-world health communication.