Current Lab Members | Communicating for Health Impact Lab

Leadership

Seth Noar – Lab Director

Dr. Seth M. Noar is the James Howard and Hallie McLean Parker Distinguished Professor in the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and a member of UNC’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. He has conducted health communication research on the design, implementation, and evaluation of health messages and campaigns for 20 years. His recent work has been focused in cancer prevention and control, especially tobacco prevention and control messaging. Dr. Noar has published more than 200 articles and chapters in a wide range of outlets, and he serves on the editorial boards of several leading journals. Dr. Noar has been a PI, Co-PI, or Co-I on more than 30 million dollars in grant-funded projects from the NIH and FDA testing health communication strategies for health promotion and disease prevention. He has been recognized as being in the top 1% most cited researchers in the social sciences (in 2014, 2018, 2019, and 2020). In 2016, Dr. Noar received both the Lewis Donohew and National Communication Association outstanding health communication scholar awards, and in 2017 he received the American Public Health Association’s Mayhew Derryberry Research award.

Staff

Caroline Ritchie – Project Manager

Caroline Ritchie, MPH, is a project manager for the Communicating for Health Impact Lab in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. She supports work related to vaping prevention messaging for adolescents with Dr. Seth Noar. Prior to this position she has worked with high schoolers in Raleigh supporting the development of an equity based, holistic mental health program and conducting breast cancer cell research. She received her Master of Public Health in Health Equity, Social Justice, and Human Rights from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at UNC.

Hannah Prenctice-Dunn – Special Advisor

Hannah Prentice-Dunn is a Project Manager at the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. She directs the day-to-day operations of UNC’s Vaping Prevention Resource (VapingPrevention.org), an educational web resource for US health practitioners, and supports research activities of the 70 faculty members of the Lineberger Cancer Prevention & Control (CPC) Research Program.

Hannah has worked for twelve years in cancer prevention research, clinical trial management, and public health program delivery. In previous roles, she has collaborated with 100+ North Carolina hospital, school, and business employers to pass tobacco-free campus policies; supported 10 healthcare systems in New York City in adopting comprehensive patient quit-tobacco systems; and contributed to numerous tobacco prevention and control research grants and publications. In her current role, she leads an academic, military, and local public health partnership between Fort Bragg, Cumberland County, and UNC system faculty to address critical cancer prevention health behaviors in North Carolina’s military communities. Hannah received her master’s degree in Health Behavior from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Hannah Prentice-Dunn’s LinkedIn Page

Youjin Jang – Postdoctoral Research Associate

Youjin Jang is a postdoctoral researcher affiliated with the Communicating for Health Impact (CHI) lab. Her research interests lie at the intersection of persuasion and health and risk communication. Her main interest includes the impact of persuasive messages on risk perceptions/behavioral decisions across different contexts.

Students

Emily Galper – Graduate Research Assistant

Emily Galper is a Ph.D. student in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. She is interested in studying the impact of sexual media on adolescents’ and young adults’ attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors and how to create messages that lead to healthier mental, emotional, and physical outcomes. Ultimately, she hopes to further the emerging research on the psychosocial impact of user-generated media on children and adolescents while helping to shape sexual media and health information dissemination on a multitude of virtual platforms.

Representative Publications:

Galper, E. F., and Tindage, M. F. (2023). Let’s talk about sex(ual Health): Young Adult women’s disclosure of their pornography use to their romantic partners. The Journal of Sex Research.

Keating, D. M., & Galper, E. (2021). An examination of how message fatigue impacts young adults’ evaluations of utilitarian messages about electronic cigarettes. Communication Research Reports.

Keating, D. M., Totzkay, D., & Galper, E. (2021). Norms message features in an alcohol consumption context: Testing the roles of functional matching and numeracy. Health Communication.

Bonjoo Gu – Graduate Research Assistant

Bonjoo Gu is a Ph.D. student in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. She brings with her experiences as a registered nurse and as a researcher at the Sogang Health Communication Center in Korea. Her prior research focused on analyzing tobacco companies’ e-cigarette marketing strategies and their impact on the public’s perception of vaping. She is passionate about health promotion campaigns, particularly those targeted at chronic illness patient groups.

Kexin (Coco) Li – Graduate Research Assistant

Kexin (Coco) Li is a master’s student at the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media. Her research interests lie in the intersectional area of interactive and immersive media and users’ health and prosocial outcomes. Therefore, for her future research journey in the doctoral program, she hopes to explore further the impact of digital games, VR content, and AR content on the users’ empathy level, cross-cultural and cross-gender understanding, emotional changes, physical health problems (e.g., obesity, vaping, problematic drinking) and mental health problems (e.g., depression and anxiety).