Sarah E Gollust
Biographic Data
| ID | 178963 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sarah E Gollust |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sarah E |
| FAMILY NAME | Gollust |
| SIGNATURE | GOLLUST S E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Minnesota |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-6109-5953 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 62 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 224 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 62 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Framing Homelessness as a Public Health Emergency
Homelessness reflects a housing system in crisis, a profound public health challenge, and a manifestation of structural racism that has produced stark racial disparities in exposure to homelessness. While framing homelessness as a public health issue may highlight structural inequities, it also risks reinforcing racialized stigmas that justify punitive responses. This study examines local TV news coverage of homelessness in Minneapolis, MN, ahead…
Local Media and Stigmatizing Narratives
Although Black youth have similar prevalence rates of mental health conditions compared to national averages, they notably have lower mental health service utilization compared to their non-Black counterparts and often note stigmatizing views as a driver of this inequity. In this two-phase project, we aimed to understand how news media narratives surrounding mental health impact Black youth perceptions of mental health needs and stigma concerns i…
Community Characteristics Predict Local News Agenda Building About Racial Health Disparities
We examined market-level social and demographic characteristics and station-level factors as predictors of local television news coverage of COVID-19-related racial disparities using the theoretical lens of agenda building and the community structure theory. We analyzed closed captioning of evening news broadcasts from 758 stations tracked in all 210 media markets from February 1 2020, to November 23 2021. We systematically validated keywords to …
Racism as a Public Health Crisis
Since 2020, many local, state, and federal governments have passed resolutions or formal statements that officially declared racism as a public health crisis in their communities. These declarations have created opportunities to raise public awareness about the harmful consequences of racism and have provided a platform for advocates and policymakers to propose policies and allocate resources to address the problem. This study contributes to our …
Effects of Exposure to Conflicting Health Information on Topic-Specific Information Sharing and Seeking Intentions
Despite considerable evidence that exposure to conflicting health information can have undesirable effects on outcomes including public understanding about and trust in health recommendations, comparatively little is known about whether such exposure influences intentions to engage in two communication behaviors central to public health promotion: information sharing and information seeking. The purpose of the current study is to test whether exp…
Why Building Power Is Key to Protecting Academic Public Health and Advancing Health Equity
Detecting and Preventing Imposter Participants
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many qualitative researchers were forced to alter their data collection methods as traditional face-to-face interviews and focus groups were prohibited by social distancing requirements. While the shift to remote and digital platforms has undoubtedly provided numerous benefits, such as more flexibility and reach, it has also introduced new challenges, particularly the risk of imposter participants, or dishonest or fa…
Beyond fear of backlash
Although U.S. health disparities are well-documented, the very communities that bear the brunt of those disparities are, ironically, underrepresented in scientific efforts to understand and address them. In two experiments (total N = 9523), we explored the consequences of omitting those perspectives for efforts to understand and address disparities in the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that, by prioritizing the perspectives of White Americans, studi…
Experience of Personal Loss Due to Drug Overdose Among US Adults
This cross-sectional study found that 32% of US adults reported knowing someone who died of a drug overdose and that personal overdose loss was associated with greater odds of endorsing addiction as an important policy issue. The findings suggest that mobilization of this group may be an avenue to facilitate greater policy change
A Call for Measuring Partisanship in US Public Health Research
Development and Evaluation of Messages for Reducing Overscreening of Breast Cancer in Older Women
BACKGROUND: Many older women are screened for breast cancer beyond guideline-recommended thresholds. One contributor is pro-screening messaging from health care professionals, media, and family/friends. In this project, we developed and evaluated messages for reducing overscreening in older women. METHODS: We surveyed women ages 65+ who were members of a nationally representative online panel. We constructed 8 messages describing reasons to consi…
Politicizing Masks? Examining the Volume and Content of Local News Coverage of Face Coverings in the U.S. Through the Covid-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic quickly became a political and health communication crisis whose impact varied by geographic location in the United States. Although local television is known to be an important source of public information, little is known about how it covered the pandemic. We analyze the volume and content of local TV coverage of masks from 758 stations across all 210 U.S. media markets in the first 22 months of the pandemic to assess how …
Vulnerability to the Effects of Conflicting Health Information
BACKGROUND: Exposure to conflicting health information can produce negative affective and cognitive responses, including confusion and backlash, and the effects of this exposure can even "carry over" and reduce people's receptivity to subsequent messages about health behaviors for which there is scientific consensus. What is not known is whether certain population subgroups are more vulnerable to such carryover effects. AIMS: This study investiga…
Prevalence and Potential Consequences of Exposure to Conflicting Information about Mammography
As scientific evidence evolves and clinical guidelines change, a certain amount of conflicting health information in the news media is to be expected. However, research is needed to better understand the public's level of exposure to conflicting health information and the possible consequences of such exposure. This study quantifies levels of public exposure to one paradigmatic case: conflicting information about breast cancer screening for women…
Newspaper Coverage of Adverse Childhood Experiences and Toxic Stress in the United States, 2014–2020
News media can shape public opinion about child adversity and influence the translation of research into public policy. Research about adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress has increased dramatically in recent years, but little is known about how these concepts are covered in news media. We reviewed how newspapers in the United States have portrayed the consequences of, causes of, and solutions to address ACEs and toxic stress, ex…
Sustaining positive perceptions of science in the face of conflicting health information
Who does Covid-19 hurt most? Perceptions of unequal impact and political implications
Designing and Implementing a Curriculum to Support Health Equity Research Leaders
Health inequities in the United States are well-documented. However, research that is focused on solutions, rather than just describing the problem, and research that is designed explicitly to inform needed policy and practice change, is still too rare. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Interdisciplinary Research Leaders (IRL) program launched in 2016 with the goal of filling this gap: to generate community-engaged research to catalyze policy ac…
US adults’ preferences for race-based and place-based prioritisation for Covid-19 vaccines
Implementing equity principles in resource allocation is challenging. In one approach, some US states implemented race-based prioritisation of COVID-19 vaccines in response to vast racial inequities in COVID-19 outcomes, while others used place-based allocation. In a nationally representative survey of n=2067 US residents, fielded in mid-April 2021 (before the entire US population became eligible for vaccines), we explored the public acceptabilit…
Public attitudes about equitable Covid-19 vaccine allocation
Equity was—and is—central in the US policy response to COVID-19, given its disproportionate impact on disadvantaged communities of colour. In an unprecedented turn, the majority of US states used place-based disadvantage indices to promote equity in vaccine allocation (eg, through larger vaccine shares for more disadvantaged areas and people of colour). We conducted a nationally representative survey experiment (n=2003) in April 2021 (before all …
Changes in Material Hardship During the First Year of the Covid-19 Pandemic
This article discusses the public's spending of the stimulus checks issued by the US government during 2020 and 2021
Local TV News Coverage of Racial Disparities in Covid-19 During the First Wave of the Pandemic, March–June 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted health and social outcomes for people of color in the United States. This study examined how local TV news stories attributed causes and solutions for COVID-19-related racial health and social disparities, and whether coverage of such disparities changed after George Floyd’s murder, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. We systematically validated keywords to extract relevant news co…
Equity at the Ballot Box
Objective: The purpose of this study is to identify health resources associated with propensity to vote at the local-level among low-wage workers in two United States. cities. Literature confirms individuals of lower income have a lower propensity of turning out to vote, yet few studies have focused on low-income populations to identify the variation in factors associated with voting within this group. Furthermore, few studies have investigated h…
Campaign Advertising and the Cultivation of Crime Worry
Previous research has documented that political information in the mass media can shape attitudes and behaviors beyond voter choice and election turnout. The current study extends this body of work to examine associations between televised political campaign advertising (one of the most common forms of political communication people encounter) and worry about crime and violence in the context of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. We merge two l…
Partisan and Other Gaps in Support for Covid-19 Mitigation Strategies Require Substantial Attention
The Polarizing Effect of News Media Messages About the Social Determinants of Health
Framing health problems in terms of the social determinants of health aims to shift policy attention to nonmedical strategies to improve population health, yet little is known about how the public responds to these messages. We conducted an experiment to test the effect of a news article describing the social determinants of type 2 diabetes on the public's support for diabetes prevention strategies. We found that exposure to the social determinan…
The Content and Effect of Politicized Health Controversies
Health issues are increasingly becoming politicized, but little is known about how politicization takes shape in the news and its effect on the public. We analyze the evolution of politicization in news coverage of two health controversies: the uproar over the 2009 mammography screening guidelines and the 2006-2007 debate over mandating the HPV vaccine as a requirement for middle school-aged girls. We then examine the public response to politiciz…
Framing Childhood Obesity
Political actors recognize the power of framing problems using personalized examples and causal stories to shape public opinion. Yet little is known about how these frames interact. This research presents the results of three studies designed to investigate the effect of “individualizing” the problem of childhood obesity, in combination with information about causes of obesity, on public support for obesity prevention policies (Studies 1 and 2) a…
Communicating population health
Framing the Consequences of Childhood Obesity to Increase Public Support for Obesity Prevention Policy
Objectives. We examined the effects of messages describing consequences of childhood obesity on public attitudes about obesity prevention policy. Methods. We collected data from 2 nationally representative Internet-based surveys. First, respondents (n = 444) evaluated the strength of 11 messages about obesity’s consequences as reasons for government action. Second, we randomly assigned respondents (n = 2494) to a control group or to treatment gro…
Communication About Health Disparities in the Mass Media
Journal Article Communication About Health Disparities in the Mass Media Get access Jeff Niederdeppe, Jeff Niederdeppe 1Department of Communication, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14850, USA Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Cabral A. Bigman, Cabral A. Bigman 2Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard School of Public Health, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Go…
Picturing obesity
Inoculation in Competitive Framing
Journal Article Inoculation in Competitive Framing: Examining Message Effects on Policy Preferences Get access Jeff Niederdeppe, Jeff Niederdeppe * Jeff Niederdeppe is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. Sarah E. Gollust is an assistant professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA. Colleen …
Issue Emergence, Evolution of Controversy, and Implications for Competitive Framing
Although scholarship on competitive framing acknowledges that framing is a dynamic process in which the early stages may matter most, very little research has focused on the dynamics of issue emergence. In this article, we draw on several literatures to develop theories for how controversy related to new issues will emerge and expand in news coverage. Through a comprehensive content analysis of 101 local newspapers across the fifty U.S. states, w…
News Coverage of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxes
Objectives. We examined news coverage of public debates about large taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) to illuminate how the news media frames the debate and to inform future efforts to promote obesity-related public policy. Methods. We conducted a quantitative content analysis in which we assessed how frequently 30 arguments supporting or opposing SSB taxes appeared in national news media and in news outlets serving jurisdictions where SS…
A crisis in my community? Local-level awareness of the opioid epidemic and political consequences
Framing Food Policy
Policies governing the sale of raw milk—making the sales of raw milk more permissive—are gaining traction on the legislative agendas of dozens of states. This paper examines one contributor to this movement on the policy agenda: the role of competitive framing. By combining theoretical approaches from policy studies and political psychology theories of competitive framing, we offer evidence supporting the recent relative success of raw milk activ…
Racism as a Public Health Crisis
Since 2020, many local, state, and federal governments have passed resolutions or formal statements that officially declared racism as a public health crisis in their communities. These declarations have created opportunities to raise public awareness about the harmful consequences of racism and have provided a platform for advocates and policymakers to propose policies and allocate resources to address the problem. This study contributes to our …
Local TV News Coverage of Racial Disparities in Covid-19 During the First Wave of the Pandemic, March–June 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted health and social outcomes for people of color in the United States. This study examined how local TV news stories attributed causes and solutions for COVID-19-related racial health and social disparities, and whether coverage of such disparities changed after George Floyd’s murder, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. We systematically validated keywords to extract relevant news co…
When “Tried and True” Advocacy Strategies Backfire
A core principle of policy advocacy is that to engage decision makers in the urgency, complexity, and controversy of problems, advocates must effectively tell the story of those issues. Policy stories, or narratives, paint mental pictures of what a problem is, who is affected, and how it came to be. Yet, the persuasive effects of narratives on one key group, state legislators, remain understudied. Drawing from the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF)…
Strategic Messaging to Promote Taxation of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages
Objectives. This study explored the use of strategic messaging by proponents of sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxation to influence public opinion and shape the policy process, emphasizing the experiences in El Monte and Richmond, California, with SSB tax proposals in 2012. Methods. We conducted 18 semistructured interviews with key stakeholders about the use and perceived effectiveness of messages supporting and opposing SSB taxation, knowledge…
Privatization of Public Services
The public health and the public education systems in the United States have encountered problems in quality of service, accountability, and availability of resources. Both systems are under pressure to adopt the general organizational reform of privatization. The debate over privatization in public education is contentious, but in public health, the shift of functions from the public to the private sector has been accepted with limited deliberat…
A Call for Measuring Partisanship in US Public Health Research
What Causes Racial Health Care Disparities? A Mixed-Methods Study Reveals Variability in How Health Care Providers Perceive Causal Attributions
Progress to address health care equity requires health care providers' commitment, but their engagement may depend on their perceptions of the factors contributing to inequity. To understand providers' perceptions of causes of racial health care disparities, a short survey was delivered to health care providers who work at 3 Veterans Health Administration sites, followed by qualitative interviews (N = 53). Survey data indicated that providers att…
Local Television News Coverage of the Affordable Care Act
Objectives. To examine the public health and policy-relevant messages conveyed through local television news during the first stage of Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation, when about 10 million Americans gained insurance. Methods. We conducted a content analysis of 1569 ACA-related local evening television news stories, obtained from sampling local news aired between October 1, 2013, and April 19, 2014. Coders systematically collected data u…
Community Involvement in Developing Policies for Genetic Testing
Because the introduction of genetic testing into clinical medicine and public health creates concerns for the welfare of individuals affected with genetic conditions, those individuals should have a role in policy decisions about testing. Mechanisms for promoting participation range from membership on advisory committees to community dialogues to surveys that provide evidence for supporting practice guidelines. Surveys can assess the attitudes an…
Politicizing Masks? Examining the Volume and Content of Local News Coverage of Face Coverings in the U.S. Through the Covid-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic quickly became a political and health communication crisis whose impact varied by geographic location in the United States. Although local television is known to be an important source of public information, little is known about how it covered the pandemic. We analyze the volume and content of local TV coverage of masks from 758 stations across all 210 U.S. media markets in the first 22 months of the pandemic to assess how …
Sustaining positive perceptions of science in the face of conflicting health information
Who does Covid-19 hurt most? Perceptions of unequal impact and political implications
Equity at the Ballot Box
Objective: The purpose of this study is to identify health resources associated with propensity to vote at the local-level among low-wage workers in two United States. cities. Literature confirms individuals of lower income have a lower propensity of turning out to vote, yet few studies have focused on low-income populations to identify the variation in factors associated with voting within this group. Furthermore, few studies have investigated h…
Community Involvement in Developing Policies for Genetic Testing
Because the introduction of genetic testing into clinical medicine and public health creates concerns for the welfare of individuals affected with genetic conditions, those individuals should have a role in policy decisions about testing. Mechanisms for promoting participation range from membership on advisory committees to community dialogues to surveys that provide evidence for supporting practice guidelines. Surveys can assess the attitudes an…
Privatization of Public Services
The public health and the public education systems in the United States have encountered problems in quality of service, accountability, and availability of resources. Both systems are under pressure to adopt the general organizational reform of privatization. The debate over privatization in public education is contentious, but in public health, the shift of functions from the public to the private sector has been accepted with limited deliberat…
Help-Seeking and Access to Mental Health Care in a University Student Population
BACKGROUND: University students represent an important population in which to study access to mental health care. Understanding their unmet needs will enhance efforts to prevent and treat mental disorders during a pivotal period in life. OBJECTIVE: To quantify mental health service use and estimate how various factors are associated with help-seeking and access in a university student population. DESIGN: A Web-based survey was administered to a r…
Prevalence and correlates of depression, anxiety, and suicidality among university students
Mental health among university students represents an important and growing public health concern for which epidemiological data are needed. A Web-based survey was administered to a random sample at a large public university with a demographic profile similar to the national student population. Depressive and anxiety disorders were assessed with the Patient Health Questionnaire (R. L. Spitzer, K. Kroenke, J. B. W. Williams, & the Patient Health Q…
Persistence of mental health problems and needs in a college student population
Ethical Issues in Public Health Practice in Michigan
Objectives. We sought to ascertain the types of ethical challenges public health practitioners face in practice and to identify approaches used to resolve such challenges. Methods. We conducted 45 semistructured interviews with public health practitioners across a range of occupations (e.g., health officers, medical directors, sanitarians, nurses) at 13 health departments in Michigan. Results. Through qualitative analysis, we identified 5 broad c…
The Polarizing Effect of News Media Messages About the Social Determinants of Health
Framing health problems in terms of the social determinants of health aims to shift policy attention to nonmedical strategies to improve population health, yet little is known about how the public responds to these messages. We conducted an experiment to test the effect of a news article describing the social determinants of type 2 diabetes on the public's support for diabetes prevention strategies. We found that exposure to the social determinan…
Communicating population health
Issue Emergence, Evolution of Controversy, and Implications for Competitive Framing
Although scholarship on competitive framing acknowledges that framing is a dynamic process in which the early stages may matter most, very little research has focused on the dynamics of issue emergence. In this article, we draw on several literatures to develop theories for how controversy related to new issues will emerge and expand in news coverage. Through a comprehensive content analysis of 101 local newspapers across the fifty U.S. states, w…
Picturing obesity
News Coverage of Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Taxes
Objectives. We examined news coverage of public debates about large taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) to illuminate how the news media frames the debate and to inform future efforts to promote obesity-related public policy. Methods. We conducted a quantitative content analysis in which we assessed how frequently 30 arguments supporting or opposing SSB taxes appeared in national news media and in news outlets serving jurisdictions where SS…
Framing the Consequences of Childhood Obesity to Increase Public Support for Obesity Prevention Policy
Objectives. We examined the effects of messages describing consequences of childhood obesity on public attitudes about obesity prevention policy. Methods. We collected data from 2 nationally representative Internet-based surveys. First, respondents (n = 444) evaluated the strength of 11 messages about obesity’s consequences as reasons for government action. Second, we randomly assigned respondents (n = 2494) to a control group or to treatment gro…
Political and News Media Factors Shaping Public Awareness of the HPV Vaccine
Communication About Health Disparities in the Mass Media
Journal Article Communication About Health Disparities in the Mass Media Get access Jeff Niederdeppe, Jeff Niederdeppe 1Department of Communication, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14850, USA Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Cabral A. Bigman, Cabral A. Bigman 2Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard School of Public Health, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Go…
Framing Childhood Obesity
Political actors recognize the power of framing problems using personalized examples and causal stories to shape public opinion. Yet little is known about how these frames interact. This research presents the results of three studies designed to investigate the effect of “individualizing” the problem of childhood obesity, in combination with information about causes of obesity, on public support for obesity prevention policies (Studies 1 and 2) a…
Strategic Messaging to Promote Taxation of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages
Objectives. This study explored the use of strategic messaging by proponents of sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxation to influence public opinion and shape the policy process, emphasizing the experiences in El Monte and Richmond, California, with SSB tax proposals in 2012. Methods. We conducted 18 semistructured interviews with key stakeholders about the use and perceived effectiveness of messages supporting and opposing SSB taxation, knowledge…
Use of Research Evidence in State Policymaking for Childhood Obesity Prevention in Minnesota
Objectives. We describe how scientific evidence about obesity has been used in Minnesota legislative materials to understand how research evidence might more effectively be translated into policymaking. Methods. We selected 13 obesity-related bills introduced from 2007 to 2011 in Minnesota. Using state archives, we collected all legislative committee meeting materials and floor testimony related to each bill. We used a coding instrument to system…
Inoculation in Competitive Framing
Journal Article Inoculation in Competitive Framing: Examining Message Effects on Policy Preferences Get access Jeff Niederdeppe, Jeff Niederdeppe * Jeff Niederdeppe is an associate professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA. Sarah E. Gollust is an assistant professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management in the School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA. Colleen …
Covering Controversy
The Content and Effect of Politicized Health Controversies
Health issues are increasingly becoming politicized, but little is known about how politicization takes shape in the news and its effect on the public. We analyze the evolution of politicization in news coverage of two health controversies: the uproar over the 2009 mammography screening guidelines and the 2006-2007 debate over mandating the HPV vaccine as a requirement for middle school-aged girls. We then examine the public response to politiciz…
Social Stigma Toward Persons With Prescription Opioid Use Disorder
OBJECTIVE: Prescription opioid use disorder and overdose have emerged as significant public health challenges in the past 15 years. Little is known about public attitudes toward individuals who have developed a prescription opioid use disorder and whether these attitudes affect support for policy interventions. This study examined social stigma toward individuals with prescription opioid use disorder and tested whether stigma was associated with …
Young adults’ responses to alternative messages describing a sugar-sweetened beverage price increase
Objective Many jurisdictions in the USA and globally are considering raising the prices of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSB) through taxes as a strategy to reduce their consumption. The objective of the present study was to identify whether the rationale provided for an SSB price increase affects young adults’ behavioural intentions and attitudes towards SSB. Design Participants were randomly assigned to receive one of eight SSB price increase rati…
Mutual Distrust
The production of health policy-relevant research is necessary, but not sufficient, to promote its utilization in policy. Our objective was to understand the perspectives of United States' state-level policy makers and health researchers on the barriers and facilitators to the translation of health evidence into the policy process, with a particular focus on issues related to relationship building. We conducted interviews with 215 US health servi…
Local Television News Coverage of the Affordable Care Act
Objectives. To examine the public health and policy-relevant messages conveyed through local television news during the first stage of Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation, when about 10 million Americans gained insurance. Methods. We conducted a content analysis of 1569 ACA-related local evening television news stories, obtained from sampling local news aired between October 1, 2013, and April 19, 2014. Coders systematically collected data u…
Women’s Awareness of and Responses to Messages About Breast Cancer Overdiagnosis and Overtreatment
BACKGROUND: Scientists, clinicians, and other experts aim to maximize the benefits of cancer screening while minimizing its harms. Chief among these harms are overdiagnosis and overtreatment. Although available data suggest that patient awareness of these harms is low, we know little about how patients respond to information about these phenomena. OBJECTIVES: Using the case of breast cancer screening, this study assesses women's awareness of and …
Medicine (48 works) · Political science (47 works) · Public health (33 works) · Psychology (32 works) · Environmental health (23 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Politics (17 works) · Law (16 works) · Business (14 works) · Law (14 works)