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 pursuing grant funding to develop a communication-based intervention that will help survivors of gender-based violence seek out cervical and breast cancer screenings. As primary investigator for an in-progress R21 proposal, to be submitted to the National Cancer Institute, she has assembled a project team including: two inter-disciplinary faculty co-investigators, a community partner (the Julie Valentine Center in Greenville, SC), and a Prisma Health Staff consultant (Coordinator of the Prisma Health Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) program).
Visit Dr. McKenzie's College Profile.
How their research is transforming healthcare
Dr. McKenzie is currently developing a grant proposal for research developing a communication-based intervention to help survivors of gender-based violence seek out cervical and breast cancer screenings. 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 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 at a higher rate. Her research regarding sexual health and sexual violence prevention also transforms preventative health care and education. For example, some of her research explores teen girls’ discourse about sex and romance online. Findings from this research can enhance sex education and healthy dating interventions by helping health communicators anticipate and better address the wide range of information and discourses about sex that adolescents are exposed to online. Furthermore, she has developed an intervention designed to change attitudes supportive of sexual violence within online fan communities. Early-stage feasibility testing was successful, paving the way for other researchers to also use pop-culture and online communities as a high-reach but low-cost method of creating beneficial changes in health attitudes.
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
