Staff: Irina A. Iles, Ph.D., M.P.H.

Irina A. Iles, Ph.D., M.P.H.

• Office of the Associate Director (OAD)
• Behavioral Research Program (BRP)

Irina A. Iles, Ph.D., M.P.H., was a Cancer Prevention Fellow (CPF) in the Office of the Associate Director (OAD) in the Behavioral Research Program.

Irina's research concerned the communicative aspect of health promotion and centers on how persuasive communication can be used to prevent and manage illness and promote population health.

Irina focused on understanding basic processes underlying human judgment and health decision making, particularly around risk-increasing health behaviors (e.g., smoking, poor nutrition), in order to design effective health messages. She was also interested in uncovering the effects of misleading advertising on health-related perceptions and behaviors.

In her first year of the Cancer Prevention Fellowship, Irina earned an M.P.H. in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Prior to that, she earned a Ph.D. in Health Communication from the University of Maryland at College Park. During graduate school, Irina was a research fellow with the Food and Drug Administration, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, and worked as a research scientist at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism in the Risk Communication and Resilience Program.

Current and/or past BRP mentors include William Klein.

Selected Publications and Presentations

• Iles IA, Gillman AS, Klein WMP, Ferrer RA, Kaufman A. Associations between absolute and relative electronic cigarette harm perceptions and information-seeking behaviours among US adult current, former and never smokers. Drug Alcohol Rev 2021 Aug 3.
• Iles IA, Gillman AS, Ferrer RA, Klein WMP. Self-affirmation inductions to reduce defensive processing of threatening health risk information. Psychol Health 2021 Jul 29:1-22.
• Iles IA, Pearson JL, Lindblom E, Moran MB. "Tobacco and Water": Testing the Health Halo Effect of Natural American Spirit Cigarette Ads and Its Relationship with Perceived Absolute Harm and Use Intentions. Health Commun 2021 Jun; 36(7):804-815.
• Iles IA, Nan X, Ma Z, Butler J, Feldman R, Wang MQ. Self-Affirmation Does Not Change Smokers' Explicit or Implicit Attitudes toward Smoking Following Exposure to Graphic Cigarette Warning Labels. Commun Res Rep 2021 38; 1:53-65.
• Iles IA, Nan X, Verrill L. Nutrient Content Claims: How They Impact Perceived Healthfulness of Fortified Snack Foods and the Moderating Effects of Nutrition Facts Labels. Health Commun 2018 Oct; 33(10):1308-1316.

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