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.

About the Presenter

  

Deborah Girasek is the Director of Social & Behavioral Sciences in the Department of Preventive Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Dr. Girasek received her MPH from the University of Michigan and her PhD from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

  

Earlier in her career, Dr. Girasek served as the Senior Advisor for Communications to the U.S. 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, Dr. Girasek 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.

  

Dr. Girasek is a sought after speaker, whose work has been widely published. She uses mixed research methods to study the behavioral and social aspects of unintentional injury control. Her research emphasizes the importance of performing needs assessments, pre-testing health communications and evaluating behavior change campaigns. Dr. Girasek's primary professional goal is to increase the adoption of evidence-based injury prevention methods.