Decoding Social Patterns in The Effects of Health Information On Health Outcomes

Abstract

This dissertation consists of three chapters, each addressing the role of cognition in health decision-making under distinct but interconnected information-related challenges. Together, they span three different methodological approaches and three different health contexts yet are united by a common concern: how individuals receive, process, and act upon health information in environments marked by uncertainty, misinformation, and structural factors. In Chapter 1, I conducted a meta-analysis of experimental studies examining the effects of health misinformation on vaccination outcomes. In Chapter 2, I applied topic modeling and interrupted time series to Reddit online discourse across multiple online communities to explore how patients, health professionals, and the general public responded to the USPSTF breast cancer screening guideline change, a situation where the underlying science itself is evolving. In Chapter 3, I drew on large-scale national survey data to investigate how psychological drivers such as cancer fatalism and awareness, along with socioeconomic factors, jointly shape cervical cancer screening behavior. Grounded in communication and behavioral science theoretical frameworks, these studies collectively map how cognition shapes health behaviors while remaining constrained by social, contextual, and structural factors. They further suggest that science communication is not merely a matter of delivering static information, but rather one of navigating complex and dynamic relational processes between information, individuals, and the environments in which they are embedded.