Research Findings

Using data from the Annenberg Sex and Media Study, current and former Annenberg Public Policy Center health communication researchers Jennifer A. Manganello, Vani R. Henderson, Amy Jordan, Nicole Trentacoste, Suzanne Martin, Michael Hennessy, and Martin Fishbein have published a paper that compares how teens and trained coders evaluate sexual content in media. “Adolescent Judgment of

In a report released online in the journal Tobacco Control, postdoctoral fellow Sally Dunlop and Dan Romer, director of APPC’s Adolescent Health Communication Institute, show how a dramatic increase in newspaper coverage of litigation against Philip Morris for its deceptive advertising for light cigarettes was associated with a decline in misperceptions about the benefits of

A study coordinated by researchers at APPC demonstrates the effectiveness of community-based screening to combat the spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in high-risk adolescents. The study found that African-American youth ages 14 to 17 who were identified as positive for at least one of three STIs subsequently reduced their number of sexual partners and

In a newly released study conducted by APPC and published in Prevention Science online, researchers analyze data from the National Annenberg Survey of Youth showing that adolescents ages 14 to 22 do exert control over their risk-seeking tendencies. Although such tendencies tend to peak during adolescence, youth who can delay gratification are also able to

On Monday, February 22, APPC’s Annenberg Center for the Advanced Study in Communication (ACASC) held its Spring Youth and Media Colloquium, featuring Vikki Sara Katz, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Communication at Rutgers University. Dr. Katz’s talk — “What children’s media brokering can teach us about digital divides and health disparities: A view from an immigrant community” — drew from data collected

Sally Dunlop, Ph.D., a former postdoctoral fellow in APPC’s Annenberg Center for Advanced Study in Communication, and Dan Romer, Ph.D., associate director of APPC and director of its Adolescent Communication Institute, published a health brief, “Adolescent and young adult crash risk: Sensation seeking, substance use propensity and substance use behaviors,” in the Journal of Adolescent Health (vol. 46, 2010).

Despite the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s nine-year effort to debunk the connection, newspapers continue to perpetuate the myth that suicides rise during the end-of-year holiday period. According to an analysis of news reporting during last year’s (2008-09) holiday period, the proportion of stories that supported the myth remained at approximately the same level as during

Martin Fishbein, the Harry C. Coles, Jr. Distinguished Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication and founding director of the Health Communication division of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, died in London of a heart attack, Friday, November 27. The founder of the theory of reasoned action, Fishbein worked at the Centers for

Michael Hennessy, Ph.D., research analysis manager at the Annenberg Public Policy Center, was lead author of a paper, “Estimating the Longitudinal Association Between Adolescent Sexual Behavior and Exposure to Sexual Media Content,” published in the Journal of Sex Research. Co-authors were APPC’s Dr. Amy Bleakley, Professor Martin Fishbein (principal investigator of the study), and Dr.

In a study just released in the American Journal of Public Health, researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center’s Adolescent Communication Institute (ACI) and five other universities along with a Philadelphia media development firm report that a mass media program directed to African American youth ages 14 to 18 reduced sexual risk behavior, especially among