Biography

Dr. Shelly Hovick is an Assistant Professor at The Ohio State School of Communication. Dr. Hovick is interested in people’s perceptions of their risk for cancer and other chronic diseases and the extent to which they respond to risks with information seeking and the adoption of prevention and early detection behaviors. Furthermore, she is interested in how communication messages can strategically be used to help reduce health disparities via increased knowledge of cancer risks and health behaviors to lower risk and improve overall health. She also focuses on the identification of key social and cognitive predictors of health information seeking that may contribute to health and communication disparities.