2023 Judy K. Black Award Winning Paper
"ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA USERS’ REACTIONS TO THE DOBBSV. JACKSON WOMEN’S HEALTH ORGANIZATION DECISION: PUBLIC HEALTH IMPLICATIONS AND POLICY INSIGHTS"
Authors: Valdez, Danny; Mena-Melendez, Lucrecia; Crawford, Brandon; Arvind, A.; and Jozkowski, K.N.
Danny Valdez, PhD
School of Public Health
Indiana University
Danny Valdez is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Health Science at the Indiana University School of Public Health, Bloomington. He received his B.A. in political science (2011); M.S. in health education (2014); and Ph.D. in health education (2018) at Texas A&M University College Station. Prior to his appointment at Indiana University, he also completed a one-year post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Arkansas studying survey measurement and development.
His work lies at the intersection of health behavior and data science. As a health behaviorist, he is interested in how informational overload, infodemics, and mass consumption of digital media affects attitudes, norms, and perceived behavioral control about trending and applied health behaviors, including intentions to vaccinate, adherence to pharmacotherapies, and controversial health topic beliefs (e.g., abortion). As a data scientist, he leverages natural language processing, artificial intelligence, and deep learning tools to analyze social media (and other structured forms of human-generated language data) as models for human cognition, affect, and wellbeing.
Dr. Valdez research has published in leading and high impact journals, including the Journal of Medical Internet Research, Social Science and Medicine, Critical Reviews of Food Science and Nutrition, AIDS and Behavior, Sexuality Research and Social Policy, Journal of Sex Research, and Journal of Interpersonal Violence. He has presented over 50 papers at leading national and international conferences and received financial support from various intramural and extramural outlets. Outside of work, Danny enjoys disconnecting from tech and spending time outdoors.
QUOTE: I am deeply humbled to be selected for this award. I hope to embody Judy K. Black’s legacy through continued research excellence and compassion for those around me.
