- Associate Professor of Public Health Communication, University of California, Merced
Dr. Susana Ramírez is a leading scholar of media, inequality, and health whose work bridges communication, public health, and policy analysis. Trained in communication and public health, her work examines how information environments—from news and digital platforms to corporate marketing systems—shape health behavior, civic engagement, and the political conditions for policymaking. Her research, funded by the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the University of California Office of the President, includes more than 50 peer-reviewed articles, widely used measures of information overload and critical health literacy, and empirical studies documenting how communication inequalities and commercial forces drive diet-related disease.
Her scholarship appears in leading scientific journals including Social Science & Medicine, Appetite, American Journal of Health Promotion, BMJ-Global Health, and Millbank Quarterly. She is co-editor of the Handbook of Language in Public Health and Healthcare (Wiley, 2024) and the forthcoming forthcoming Food Wars: Communication, Science, and the Global Battle Against Industrial Food Marketing (Oxford University Press), a transnational analysis showing how public health researchers, advocates, and policymakers are confronting corporate power. Ramírez serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Health Communication and the Journal of Communication in Healthcare. Her expertise has been featured on NPR’s Science Friday, KQED, Marketplace, Univisión, KFF Health News, and in Parents.
Dr. Ramírez is Associate Professor of Public Health Communication at the University of California, Merced, where she teaches and mentors across undergraduate, doctoral, and postdoctoral levels. She holds a PhD and MA from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, an MPH from Harvard University, and a BA from Santa Clara University.
Experience
-
2019–presentAssociate Professor, University of California, Merced
Education
-
University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School for Communication, PhD
-
Harvard University, T.H. Chan School of Public Health, MPH
Publications
-
2024The Handbook of Language in Public Health and Healthcare,
-
2023Testing the Effectiveness of Narrative Messages Using Critical Health Communication, Journal of Communication in Healthcare
-
2023Examining the role and strategies of advocacy coalitions in California's statewide sugar-sweetened beverage tax debate (2001-2018), American Journal of Health Promotion
-
2023Communicating about the social determinants of health: Development of a local brand, Journal of Communication in Healthcare
-
2023The communication of scientific information to scientists, clinicians, and the public: Recommendations for achieving health equity, Neurology
-
2022The racialized marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages: Perspectives and potential remedies, Journal of Medicine, Law, and Ethics
-
2022Toward a recipe for deep versus surface level tailoring: Mixed-methods validation of message features to reduce sugary beverage consumption, Journal of Health Communication
-
2022News coverage of Mexico’s front-of-package food label policy, BMJ-Global Health
-
2022Segmented assimilation as a mechanism to explain the dietary acculturation paradox, Appetite
-
2020Framing food access: Do community gardens inadvertently reproduce inequality? , Health Education & Behavior
-
2020Public awareness of air pollution and health threats: Challenges and opportunities for communication strategies to improve environmental health literacy, Journal of Health Communication
-
2020Media reporting on air pollution: Health risk and precautionary measures in national and regional newspapers, International Journal of Environmental and Public Health
-
2020From ‘Infodemics’ to Health Promotion: A novel framework for the role of social media in public health, American Journal of Public Health
-
2019Development of a participatory health communication intervention: An ecological approach to reducing rural information inequality and health disparities, Journal of Health Communication
-
2019Assessing the impact of the public nutrition measure Diet Information Overload, Patient Education & Counseling
-
2019Beyond fatalism: Information overload as a mechanism to understand obesity health disparities, Social Science & Medicine
Grants and Contracts
-
2019A mobile phone-based pilot intervention to prevent obesity in Latino preschool children
- Role:
- Co-I
- Funding Source:
- National Institute of Minority Health & Health Disparities, National Institutes of Health
-
2018Assessing the utility of a web-based diagnostic and decision-making tool
- Role:
- PI
- Funding Source:
- Buoy Healthcare
-
2015Innovative application of communication theory to increase Latino research participation
- Role:
- PI
- Funding Source:
- National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health
-
2015Breast cancer prevention mHealth intervention for rural Latinas
- Role:
- PI
- Funding Source:
- National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Health
-
2015Communication for Partnerships to Improve Community Health – Merced County
- Role:
- PI
- Funding Source:
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention via Merced County Department of Public Health
-
2014Mapping the health information environment in a rural, culturally diverse region: Toward a transformative health information intervention to reduce rural and ethnic health disparities
- Role:
- PI
- Funding Source:
- Hellman Family Faculty Fund
-
2014A CBPR initiative to address obesity disparities for Latinos in the San Joaquin Valley
- Role:
- Co-I
- Funding Source:
- National Institute of Minority Health & Health Disparities, National Institutes of Health
Contact A. for
- General
- Media request
- Speaking request
- Consulting / Advising
- Research collaboration
