Mugur Valentin Geana, MD, PhD

Mugur V. Geana, MD, PhD is Associate Professor of strategic communication at the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications; he is also the Director of the Center for Excellence in Health Communication to Underserved Populations and holds an honorary faculty appointment with the Research Division, Department of Family Medicine, KUMC. Geana's interest in applied research and strategic communication campaigns allowed him to contribute to projects for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and the Kansas Department of Transportation, as well as in other grants and projects totaling more than $5 million over the last five years. Geana founded the Experimental Research Media Laboratory at the School of Journalism and Mass Communications, a major research resource for our graduate program. Geana is the Principal Investigator for multidisciplinary research collaboration between KU and the University of Costa Rica addressing public health interventions to underserved communities in Central America, as well as for a grant from the Washington University in St. Louis focused on finding optimized ways of delivering updated health information about diabetes to American Indians. Geana teaches strategic communication campaigns at undergraduate level and research theory and methods at graduate level. He is the recipient of the prestigious 2011 Baskett-Mosse award from the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

My scholarly work brings together two aspects of my education, experience, and teaching: medicine and communication. The work I do is applied health communication, with an emphasis on disease prevention and health promotion to medically underserved and minority populations. This area of mass communication research requires both multidisciplinary collaboration and significant funding. It engages resources from primary care, public health, social welfare, strategic communication, and news, to mention only a few of the academic disciplines that a comprehensive health promotion campaign involves at theoretical and implementation levels. Because of its applied scope, research outcomes are knowledge building with the potential to enhance our understanding of this emerging field. More importantly, this research also has a strategic social impact, driving health beliefs and behavior change and promoting policy changes that benefit target audiences. Effects may reverberate for years to come on the intervention population or serve as a model to instill behavioral changes in other audiences. My secondary area of research is how new technologies and paradigms (such as social media, tailored health news, etc.) can aid the process of health communication and information. I often blend these two research interests in my scholarly work, as they support and complement each other.

A Prescription for Internet Access: Appealing to Middle-Age and Older Racial and Ethnic Minorities through Social Network Sites to Combat Colorectal Cancer

American Ebola story: Frames in U.S. national newspapers

Calling Doctor Google? Technology Adoption and Health Information Seeking Among Low-Income African-American Older Adults

Engaging Diverse Underserved Communities to Bridge the Mammography Divide

HomeLink News: A computerized platform for the delivery of individually tailored health news

Homosexuality and the heartbeat of a locker room: An analysis of quotations in the context of hegemonic and inclusive masculinity theories

Implementation Intentions and Colorectal Screening: A Randomized Trial in Safety-Net Clinics

Searching for cures: Inner-city and rural patients' awareness and perceptions of cancer clinical trials

Willing but Unwilling: Attitudinal Barriers to Adoption of Home-Based Health Information Technology Among Older Adults