Professor, Communication
Lauren Frank's expertise is public health communication, mass media research and risk communication — particularly public health communication in the development and evaluation of social and behavior change communication campaigns. Frank has studied pandemics, infectious diseases, vaccinations, maternal and child health, gender norms, adolescent sexual education and a variety of other topics.
As part of this, she studies how people make health decisions and how social norms affect our choices. Much of her research examines entertainment-education, the process of intentionally adding educational information to entertaining media, including television and social media.
Frank collaborates with BBC Media Action and other international development groups to examine the influence of media campaigns on behaviors.