Smita C. Banerjee PhD

Smita Banerjee Ph.D. is a Behavioral Scientist with research interests in health communication. The core domain of her health communication-based research interests is in the area of persuasion, particularly message framing and health interventions. Other key areas of research interest are media literacy, media effects, and adolescent risk-taking behaviors. She firmly believes that a better understanding of the impact of mediated and persuasive messages on health behavior change can lead to the development of significantly more effective campaigns for cancer prevention and control.

Her past work on cancer prevention has included the development of inoculation-based anti-smoking interventions, aimed at changing the salient beliefs that influence smoking among adolescents. As well, she has explored the social, psychological, and behavioral basis for tanning bed use, and message design to reduce tanning bed use among college students (with the goal of mitigating the risk of skin cancer).