Research
Research with collaborators on vaccine communication, health messaging, and how health information circulates on digital platforms. My role varied by study.
Publications
- 2025
Using WhatsApp for vaccine promotion in low- and middle-income countries: practitioner-informed perspectives.
BMJ Global Health 10(10): e018983
Draws on five vaccine-promotion projects in Argentina, Guatemala, India, and Kenya. WhatsApp is widely used for health communication in these settings; the paper sets out practitioner-informed guidance for using the platform.
- 2025
A Social Norms Intervention to Improve Vaccination Intentions: Outcomes from the Happy Baby Program in the Slum Areas of Varanasi, India.
Journal of Health Communication 30, 548–557
Reports a quasi-experiment of the Happy Baby Programme, a WhatsApp intervention for caregivers in Varanasi. Compared with no intervention, vaccine messaging improved vaccination intentions, self-efficacy, and social norms around childhood immunisation.
- 2024
Assessing Message Deployment During Public Health Emergencies Through Social Media: Empirical Test of Optimizing Content for Effective Dissemination.
Journal of Medical Internet Research 26: e50871
Tests Rapid Message Testing at Scale: 12 versions of a vaccine-confidence video, varied by length, aspect ratio, and subtitles, placed as Facebook ads. Among this audience, the shorter portrait video without subtitles performed best.
- 2023
Production of vaccination videos in India: learnings from a science-art partnership.
BMC Public Health 23, article 736
Describes the production of eight experimental COVID-19 vaccination videos by researchers, vaccine experts, and filmmakers in Odisha and the United States, and how scientific protocol was aligned with creative production.
- 2023
Social network analysis of COVID-19 vaccine YouTube videos in Odisha, India: mapping the channel network and analyzing comment sentiment.
BMC Proceedings 17, article 9
Maps how two vaccination videos travelled through YouTube’s recommendation and comment networks in Odisha. A non-humorous, collectivistic video delivered by a woman reached more viewers and held attention longer.
- 2022
Promoting Vaccination in India through Videos: The Role of Humor, Collectivistic Appeal and Gender.
Vaccines 10(7): 1110
An online experiment with 2,349 participants in India, testing eight videos that varied humour, collectivistic versus individualistic appeal, and the gender of the speaker. After viewing, beliefs about vaccination improved; humour reduced negative beliefs about vaccines themselves.
- 2022
Creation, dissemination, and evaluation of videos to promote COVID-19 vaccination in India: A research protocol.
Gates Open Research 6:82, version 2
Sets out the protocol for producing, distributing, and evaluating theory-based videos to promote a second COVID-19 vaccine dose in India, including how humour, appeal type, and speaker gender would be tested.
Preprints
- 2024
Preprint · not peer reviewed
How Social Norms Can Diffuse through Social Networks: A Study of Childhood Vaccination Attitudes and Norms in Varanasi, India
Research Square · Version 1 · 12 March 2024
Examines social networks and childhood-vaccination beliefs among 2,058 caregivers in Varanasi. Vaccine conversations were concentrated within families, with few connections to friends or the wider community. The study explores how these networks relate to shared expectations about vaccination and what that means for health communication.
Other contributions
- 2023
National Disaster Management Guidelines: Mental Health and Psychosocial Support Services in Disasters
Named among the experts who contributed to developing these Government of India guidelines, published by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) in collaboration with Rahbar, Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
Read the national guidelines · acknowledgement on p. 199 - 2021
Gig Economy India 2020/2021
Acknowledged by WageIndicator Foundation for assisting with data collection for its “Platform Workers: Decent Rights and Pay” project, as part of a FLAME University student team. The report examines platform workers’ pay, working conditions and labour rights in India.
Read the report · acknowledgement on p. 1
Talks and presentations
Selected conference contributions from collaborative research. See Speaking for panels and moderated discussions.
- 2025
How descriptive and injunctive norms can be influenced by an intervention to affect vaccine uptake: Use of social media to promote vaccination in slum areas of Varanasi, India.
Conference contribution. APHA Annual Meeting and Expo.
- 2024
A WhatsApp-based chatbot intervention to promote childhood vaccination: findings from a quasi-experiment in the slum areas of Varanasi, India.
Conference contribution. APHA Annual Meeting and Expo.
- 2024
Let’s talk this through: Community conversations as mediators of intervention effects in promoting vaccination.
Conference contribution. APHA Annual Meeting and Expo.
- 2022
Promoting the second dose of the Covid-19 vaccine in Odisha, India: The role of humor, collectivistic appeal, and gender.
Oral presentation. Vaccination Acceptance Research Network (VARN) Conference, Sabin Institute.
- 2022
Social network analysis of COVID-19 vaccine videos in Odisha, India on YouTube: mapping the comment network and analyzing comment sentiment.
Poster. Vaccination Acceptance Research Network (VARN) Conference, Sabin Institute.
- 2022
Algorithmic bias and the challenges of promoting COVID-19 vaccines online: a case study.
Poster. Public Health Research in Social Media (PRISM) Conference, San Francisco.
- 2022
The RMTS (Rapid Message Testing at Scale) strategy: a new methodology for promoting informed decision-making.
Poster. Public Health Research in Social Media (PRISM) Conference, San Francisco.
- 2022
Promoting vaccination in India through videos: the role of humor, collectivistic appeal, and gender.
Oral presentation. ISBCC Summit.
