Grantee: Erika A. Waters

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Erika A. Waters

Erika A. Waters

Social and Health Psychologist
BRP PAST FEATURED GRANTEE
Organization:
  • Washington University in St. Louis

Dr. Waters seeks to understand how people's thoughts and feelings about health risks influence their health-related decisions and behavior. To accomplish this, she explores the rich variety of cognitive, emotional, and social factors that make it difficult for people to use health risk information effectively. Understanding these inter-relationships will enable the development of health communication and behavior interventions that reduce disparities in cancer morbidity and mortality. Dr. Waters' primary focus is on primary prevention. As such, her research involves primarily non-clinical populations recruited in community settings. Her research has addressed communication issues surrounding specific disease sites such as colorectal cancer and breast cancer, but also specific health behaviors such as tobacco use and physical activity. Due to the complexity of these issues, Dr. Waters has begun taking a transdisciplinary approach to her research by collaborating with experts in anthropology, social work, economics, epidemiology, biostatistics, visual design, and software development.

Dr. Waters' current research project, “Communicating Multiple Disease Risks: A Translation of Risk Prediction Science,” attempts to bridge the gap between epidemiology's ability to create algorithms to predict risk and the public's ability to understand, make meaningful, and use such information to improve their health. To accomplish this, Dr. Waters and her team will use established and effective risk communication strategies to optimize and test communication methods that help people understand the powerful effects that physical activity has on health. This understanding could affect their risk of multiple diseases, foster their motivation to get more physical activity, and eventually improve public health. The study will target medically underserved populations, with the goal of reducing health disparities. A key deliverable will be a fully functional, scientifically valid risk assessment tool that encourages behavior change and could be applied to a variety of research, clinical, and public health settings.

My passion for primary prevention stems from witnessing firsthand the devastating consequences of engaging in unhealthy behaviors. However, it wasn't until my postdoctoral experience, which provided the opportunity to learn the multitude of ways that other disciplines approach the same problem, that I realized the importance of involving many disciplinary perspectives in my own work.”

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