The Intelligence of the Crowd? Using Audiences to Identify and Generate Strategic Colorectal Cancer Screening Messages

Congratulations to Dr. Andy King, winner of the 2026 Lewis Donohew Outstanding Scholar in Health Communication award! Dr. King is a Professor in the Department of Communication and the Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah. His research centers on health and cancer communication, focusing on strategic content and message design, navigating the public health communication environment, and visual persuasion. His research has received awards from the International Communication Association, the National Communication Association, and the Society for Risk Analysis. He has received funding from the National Cancer Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Health Resources and Services Administration, and the United States Department of Agriculture. He is the former Associate Editor-in-Chief of Health Communication and chaired the Utah Cancer Coalition from 2023 to 2025. (Read More)

Keynote Address: Current Concerns at the Intersection of Health, Law, and Human Rights: From the Local to the Global

Sofia Gruskin directs the USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health (IIGH). She is a Distinguished Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences and Law , Professor of Preventive Medicine and Chief of the Disease Prevention, Policy and Global Health Division at the Keck School of Medicine; Professor of Law and Preventive Medicine at the Gould School of Law. Within USC, she is highly engaged in university service, including serving as a member of the USC Academic Senate Executive Board. Gruskin was awarded USC’s highest academic honor, a Distinguished Professorship, in March 2024.

Gruskin currently sits on numerous international boards and committees, including the PEPFAR Scientific Advisory Board; the Lancet Commission on Gender and Global Health; the IUSSP Scientific Panel on Population Registers, Ethics and Human Rights; and the Lancet Commission on Health and Human Rights. Professor Gruskin has published extensively, including several books, training manuals and edited journal volumes, and more than 200 articles and chapters covering a wide range of topics. She is an associate editor for Global Public Health, on the editorial advisory board for Revue Tiers Monde, and a trustee of Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters. Previously, she served as an associate editor of the American Journal of Public Health and editor-in-chief for Health and Human Rights, both for over a decade.

A pioneer in bringing together multidisciplinary approaches to global health, Gruskin’s work — which ranges from global policy to the grassroots level — has been instrumental in developing the conceptual, methodological and empirical links between health and human rights. With a long-standing focus on HIV, sexual and reproductive health, child and adolescent health, gender-based violence, non-communicable disease, and health systems, Gruskin’s work also seeks to address the manifestations of inequalities in a range of areas, including sustainability, climate change, and the long-term impacts of COVID-19 and other emerging pandemics. (Read More)