The Department of Psychology and Neuroscience proudly presents Dr. Veronica Derricks, Assistant Professor of Psychology, Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) School of Science

Title: Too close for comfort: Understanding targeted health communication strategies that undermine (versus enhance) outcomes among Black Americans

Abstract: Black Americans experience disproportionately worse health outcomes across a myriad of metrics. To address these disparities, many public health policies and prevention efforts have leveraged communication interventions such as information targeting— a technique where information is disseminated specifically to audiences believed to experience heightened risk for a health condition. While targeting is expected to increase information accessibility and improve uptake of health behaviors, I theorize that targeting health information based on marginalized racial identities can produce negative effects. As such, the current talk will discuss (a) whether and why targeting health information based on marginalized racial identities backfires, and (b) development of a messaging intervention to improve delivery of targeted health information to Black adults in primary care. Across 4 online experiments, I recruited Black U.S. adults using MTurk and Prolific Academic. Results showed that exposure to targeted (versus non-targeted) information about HIV and COVID-19 produced more negative evaluations of the information content and information provider due to social identity threat (i.e., perceptions of being negatively judged). Furthermore, encountering targeted health information was especially likely to backfire when the information provider did not share recipients’ racial identity or when the information was delivered by a computer algorithm (versus a human source). To address the consequences associated with race-based targeting, I developed and demonstrated the preliminary efficacy of a culturally sensitive messaging intervention that can improve clinicians’ delivery of targeted information to Black adults in primary care. Implications for health equity will be discussed.