Shelly’s areas of expertise include health campaigns, risk communication, and persuasion. She has worked on a range of health topics focusing on how to adopt new, or reinforce existing health attitudes and behaviors using innovative, theory- and data-driven communication research. She has developed and/or evaluated numerous health campaigns for different audiences (e.g., college students, young adults, rural populations, and minority populations) on a range of topics, such as binge drinking prevention, occasional smoking prevention, colorectal cancer screening, smoking cessation, and hazing. Over the next several years, Shelly will be involved in several multi-million dollar health communication interventions designed to decrease unintended pregnancies in Iowa among women. These include leading the development and implementation of a pair of social marketing campaigns for college and non-college audiences, co-directing the creation and airing of a pair of new radio serial dramas for African American and Latina women, and assisting with an effort to improve family planning services at Iowa pharmacies. She teaches graduate courses in health communication, health campaigns, and persuasion and health.
Articles
Mother–Daughter Communication About Sex: The Influence of Authoritative Parenting Style (with Natasha S. Askelson and Sandi Smith), Health Communication (2012)
Parent–child communication about sex has been shown to delay sexual activity and increase contraceptive and...
Mother–Daughter Communication About Sex: The Influence of Authoritative Parenting Style (with Natasha M. Askelson and Sandi Smith), Health Communication (2012)
Parent–child communication about sex has been shown to delay sexual activity and increase contraceptive and...
African American Women and Weight Loss: Disregarding Environmental Challenges (with Teresa Mastin and Natasha M. Askelson), Journal of Transcultural Nursing (2012)
In the United States, almost 80% of African American women are either overweight or obese....
The Birds, the Bees, and the HPVs: What Drives Mothers’ Intentions to Use the HPV Vaccination as a Chance to Talk About Sex? (with Natoshia M. Askelson and Sandi Smith), Journal of Pediatric Health Care (2011)
Parent-child communication about sex is a way to protect adolescents from engaging in risky behavior....
Completely Isolated? Health Information Seeking Among Social Isolates (with Natoshia M. Askelson and Knute D. Carter), Health Education Behavior (2011)
To better target messages it is important to determine where people seek their health information....
Contributions to Books
Being convincing : talking to others persuasively / (with Natoshia M. Askelson and Mary L. Aquilino), The resilient nurse empowering your practice (2011)
You are what you consume: The role of media in obesity (with T. Mastin and N. A. Askelson), Obesity in Childhood and Adolescence (2008)
“I’m glad you feel comfortable enough to tell me that”: Action research for better health care for women who partner with women, Communication and activism: Communication for social change (2007)