Haoran Chris Chu thinks effective health communication can contribute to the well-being of people, and his research is backing that up.

“Health is one particular area in which people are the most important decision-makers, and the process to improve their well-being can be impacted,” Chu said. “Communication, particularly as it relates to persuasion research, is an effective way to help people or facilitate informed decision-making. Since people are ultimately responsible for their health, it would be meaningful to use communication research as a way to contribute to that process.”

That’s one of the biggest drivers in this area of research, he said. But there’s more.

 “The social impact that could be generated from this line of research interests me a lot, and that motivates me to conduct research that could have practical social implications.”

Chu has conducted several types of social scientific research, including surveys and experiments – testing the effects of different messages that could be used to promote positive health outcomes. He often will administer different messages to people assigned to random groups to determine which ones work the best.

Then, there are more sophisticated, conjoint experiments that ask people to choose one of two or more options in real-life settings. Conjoint analysis is a form of statistical analysis that firms use in market research to understand how customers value different components or features of their products or services. “When you’re buying a product, you consider multiple attributes – you don’t buy based on one thing like whether it tastes good or not or whether it’s cheaper or more expensive.”

He used discrete-choice conjoint experiments when he wanted to find out the drivers behind people’s health choices. In one, he showed participants different vaccines and asked them what was most important between characteristics like whether it was approved for emergency use or received full FDA approval and who endorsed the vaccine.

 “That allows me to extract what is the most important characteristic that influences people’s decisions,” he said.

He’s also used longitudinal experiments to track people’s responses over time, especially when it comes to their perceptions of different health risks.

He tracked the mental health status of people in the 2021 winter storm in Texas that killed hundreds. Surveying those involved one, two and six months after the storm allowed him to observe their initial exposure and see how their access to friends and family, even strangers, influenced their mental health status.

With his experiments, he hopes to “design health communications messages that are tailored to people’s different needs. There is no one-size-fits-all approach in health communications. People have different concerns.”

More recently, he’s used artificial intelligence (AI) to design messages. “I did a study using Chat GPT to create narratives that cater to people’s psychological characteristics. We found GPT is very effective in creating stories … but it’s not as good as human writers in many ways.”

Chu said he hopes his research will achieve positive health outcomes for all. “People must take responsibility for their own health, but there are other social and cultural determinants of health.

One thing we can contribute to the whole process is to facilitate an environment that is conducive to individual health. I hope my research will contribute to this process.”

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