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Title

Exploring gender disparities, communication strategies, or vaccination messaging

Mentor

Laura Crosswell, Ph.D.

Department

Reynolds School of Journalism and

Biosketch

Laura Crosswell, Ph.D., holds a joint appointment between the Reynolds School of Journalism and Â鶹ӳ»­ School of Medicine. Prior to joining the Reynolds School of Journalism, she taught a variety of courses at the College of Charleston, Louisiana State University, and Arizona State University. She graduated with her doctoral degree in media and public affairs from Louisiana State University.

You can find Crosswell’s latest work in scholarly journals such as "Critical Public Health and Public Health Perspectives" as well as in her book, "Politics, Propaganda, and Public Health." Her research focuses on the cultural implications of consumerism and persuasive texts, and she often uses advanced eye-tracking technology to examine the physiological and psychosocial influences of media content. Her work specifically concentrates on the politicized and commercialized mechanisms of public health messaging.

Project overview

Interested students will select one of the following three projects to work on under the guidance of Crosswell.

Project 1: Gender disparities in HPV vaccination: a comparative study

This study explores the factors that have led to gender disparities in HPV vaccination rates among young males. Specifically, the study investigates underlying reasons at the individual level among these young adult males. Guided by findings from previous studies that have examined factors that are involved in decision making processes and outcomes in vaccinations and gender disparities regarding vaccination, potential factors will be carefully selected and investigated within the study context. Additionally, we will assess the influences of the same factors on HPV vaccination uptake/hesitancy among female recipients in the same age group. The comparison outcomes between two groups will help identify determinants contributing to the gender disparities in HPV vaccine coverage.

Project 2: Effective communication strategies for HPV vaccination: a psychophysiological study

This study will be guided by the findings from the study outlined above. The main objective of the second study is to identify effective communication strategies that address the key vaccination determinants through communicative interventions. Specifically, various public health message strategies will be designed and examined for their impact on the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral processing of these messages among the targeted recipients. This study will focus particularly on assessing the real-time processing of these messages using various psychophysiological measures, including heart rate, skin conductance, and eye-tracking. These measures will provide data with significant academic and practical implications regarding viewers' cognitive and emotional engagement with and reactions to specific elements of mediated messages in real-time, offering a more unbiased, unobtrusive, and objective assessment.

Project 3: Analyzing the impact of corporate messaging on Covid-19 vaccination intentions

Vaccination delivery programs heavily depend on public acceptance of vaccination communication. Due to the novelty of pharmaceutically funded Covid-19 vaccination messaging, little is known about ways in which marketing messaging will influence vaccination intentions and consumer trust in the health messaging. Accordingly, it is important to understand ways in which corporately funded health messaging can impact public trust in Covid-19 inoculation efforts. This study examines how pharmaceutical branding on vaccination messaging influences viewer trust and consumer compliance in Covid-19 public health initiatives. 

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