About
Dr. Ashley Hedrick McKenzie is an assistant professor of health communication at Clemson University. She completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and she graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with a Ph.D. in media and communication.
Dr. McKenzie’s research explores the relationship between attitudes and beliefs—such as stigma, gender role ideologies, victim blaming and rape myths—and a variety of sexual health issues, including cervical and breast cancer prevention, sexual violence prevention, HIV prevention, and human trafficking education. She is particularly interested in using online spaces and digital health interventions to change attitudes, beliefs, and health outcomes.
Dr. McKenzie has developed and conducted feasibility testing for a digitally based intervention, designed to target the changing of attitudes that are supportive of sexual violence within an online One Direction fan fiction community. Content posted within the community contains hundreds of millions of views from teen girls and young women across the world. Dr. McKenzie is also developing a communication-based intervention that will help make cervical and breast cancer screenings more accessible to survivors of gender-based violence. In partnership with an interdisciplinary faculty team, a community partner, and clinical partners within Prisma Health, she has secured seed funding to conduct research with survivors of gender-based violence that will inform intervention development. Dr. McKenzie was also awarded the CUSHR Faculty Fellowship to further facilitate intervention development in partnership with Prisma Health Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Visit Dr. McKenzie's College Profile.
How their research is transforming healthcare
Dr. McKenzie is currently developing a communication-based intervention to help make cervical and breast cancer screenings more accessible to survivors of gender-based violence. There is a critical need for this intervention; survivors are at a higher risk of developing cervical and breast cancers, and yet they are also more likely to skip cervical and breast cancer screenings. No formally evaluated interventions exist to help survivors overcome barriers to screenings. The proposed intervention will (1) provide training in trauma-informed care and efficacious communication strategies to health care providers and (2) deliver persuasive messaging to survivors, encouraging them to seek out screenings. This research will transform health care by better preparing health care practitioners to meet survivors’ unique needs and by encouraging survivors to seek out preventative care. Dr. McKenzie’s other research transforms healthcare by generating knowledge that can inform health programming efforts, such as: barriers to HPV vaccination, health care provider communication strategies regarding HPV vaccination, content and spread of misinformation about the HPV vaccine and birth control on social media, and social norms surrounding sexual violence.
Health research keywords
Faculty Scholar, Health communication; sexual health; cervical cancer screening; breast cancer screening; HPV vaccination; sexual violence prevention; HIV prevention; trauma-informed care; sex education; sex trafficking prevention; health beliefs
