My research centers on three foci.
"How Do People
Share Health-related Information?"
Information Dissemination
"What Message-level Factors Affect Human's Thinking?"
Message Features
"How Do People
Respond to Health-related Messages?"
Cognitive Responses
Research Snaps
Information Dissemination
How Do People Share Information?
My passion for understanding how messages spread began during a research project with the IMF at Boston University. Leading a team, I analyzed how sovereign debt information traveled on Twitter during the COVID-19 pandemic. We uncovered hidden power dynamics behind influential sources using social media data, network analyses, and a custom codebook.
That project didn’t just reveal patterns—it sparked a deeper curiosity! During my doctoral studies at the University of Kentucky, I expanded the codebook’s reach, collaborating with healthcare scholars to uncover key health message disseminators. What started with economic data became a vibrant journey into the forces shaping information flow across networks.
Sample Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles:
Chen, H. Y., & Sesay, N. (2025). Attributes and predictors of opinion leaders on Twitter: COVID-19 childhood vaccination campaign, 40(2), 244-257. Health Communication.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2024.2343464
Message Features
What Factors Affect Human's Cognitive Responses to Messages?
My journey into understanding how individual differences shape responses to messages is deeply personal. Growing up in an academic culture that prized rote memorization under relentless time pressure, I often struggled with memory challenges. I longed for a better way to learn, one that accounted for the unique ways individuals process information.
Drawing from these experiences, I developed a theoretical model grounded in information processing theories. This model extends media psychology research by exploring how media message characteristics interact with individual differences in personality and perception within health communication contexts such as substance use. What began as a personal struggle has grown into a passionate scholarly pursuit, driven by the goal of designing messages that resonate with diverse audiences.
Sample Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles:
Chen, H. Y. (2025). Optimizing health knowledge acquisition: an experimental study of naloxone messaging, memory, and knowledge improvement (Doctoral dissertation, University of Kentucky, Kentucky, US). https://doi.org/10.13023/etd.2025.267