Learning objectives:
- Participants will be able to list the advantages of taking a data driven approach to risk communication.
- Participants will advocate for the inclusion of needs assessment, pre-testing and evaluation into their design of risk communications.
- Participants will be able to describe the limitations of tailoring, fear appeals and communications generally.
- Participants will be able to describe a role for injury-related communications that goes beyond telling the target audience how they should behave.
Dr. Girasek is the Director of Social & Behavioral Sciences in the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. She received her MPH from the University of Michigan and her PhD from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Earlier in her career, she served as the Sr. Advisor for Communications to the US Office of Disease Prevention & Health Promotion. She was also the Director of Health Communications at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Since turning her attention to our nation’s injury problem two decades ago, she has served on study sections for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as the National Institutes of Health. She was appointed by NOAA to serve on the assessment team that made recommendations for improvement after Superstorm Sandy. She is a member of the editorial board for the journal Injury Epidemiology and was recently appointed to the National Park Service’s Drowning Prevention Advisory Board.