Chelsea Ratcliff

Assistant Professor

Contact Info

Office:

604 Caldwell Hall

Chelsea Ratcliff is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at UGA. She uses empirical research methods to address pressing questions in ComSHER (Communicating Science, Health, Environment, and Risk), especially questions about how to effectively convey complex and uncertain scientific evidence to diverse audiences.

Current projects of the Communicating Uncertain Science to the Public (CUSP) Lab include examining the social, ethical, and psychological consequences of approaches to communicating uncertainty in health contexts (e.g., vaccines, COVID-19, climate change). Dr. Ratcliff draws on a decade of professional experience in health journalism and marketing to inform her research. Her work has been published in Communication Research, Human Communication Research, Science Communication, Health Communication, Public Understanding of Science, Risk Analysis, Annals of Behavioral Medicine, and American Journal of Public Health, among others. You can learn more about Dr. Ratcliff's CUSP Lab here.

Dr. Ratcliff's areas of expertise include:

Public understanding of science communication
News coverage of health science
Message effects
Mass media health campaign design
Psychological reactance & resistance to persuasion
Ethical and social consequences of communication

Education:

PhD (Communication, University of Utah)

MA (Communication, University of Utah)

Other Affiliations:

Owens Institute for Behavioral Research

Selected Publications

Selected Publications:

Ratcliff, C. L., Harvill, B., & Wicke, R. (2023). Understanding Public Preferences for Learning About Uncertain Science: Measurement and Individual Difference Correlates. Frontiers in Communication.
Ratcliff, C. L., Fleerackers, A., Wicke, R., Harvill, B., King, A. J., & Jensen, J. D. (2023). Framing COVID-19 vaccine preprint research as uncertain: A mixed-method study of public reactions. Health Communication. doi:10.1080/10410236.2023.2164954
Ratcliff, C. L. & Wicke, R. (2022). How the public evaluates media representations of uncertain science: An integrated explanatory framework. Public Understanding of Science. doi:10.1177/09636625221122960
Ratcliff, C. L., Wicke, R., & Harvill, B. (2022). Communicating uncertainty to the public during the COVID-19 pandemic: A scoping review of the literature. Annals of the International Communication Association. doi:10.1080/23808985.2022.2085136
Ratcliff, C. L. (2021). Communicating scientific uncertainty across the dissemination trajectory: A precision medicine case study. Science Communication. doi:10.1177/10755470211038335
Ratcliff, C. L., Wong, B., Jensen, J. D., & Kaphingst, K. A. (2021). The impact of communicating uncertainty on public responses to precision medicine research. Annals of Behavioral Medicine. doi:10.1093/abm/kaab050
Ratcliff, C. L., Krakow, M., Greenberg-Worisek, A., & Hesse, B. W. (2021). Digital health engagement in the US population: Insights from the 2018 Health Information National Trends Survey. American Journal of Public Health. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2021.306282
Ratcliff, C. L. & Sun, Y. (2020). Overcoming resistance through narrative communication: Findings from a meta-analytic review. Human Communication Research. doi:10.1093/hcr/hqz017
Ratcliff, C. L. (2019). Characterizing reactance in communication research: A review of conceptual and operational approaches. Communication Research. doi:10.1177/0093650219872126
Ratcliff, C. L., Jensen, J. D., Scherr, C. L., Krakow, M., & Crossley, K. (2019). Loss/gain framing, dose, and reactance: A message experiment. Risk Analysis. doi:10.1111/risa.13379
Ratcliff, C. L., Kaphingst, K. A., & Jensen, J. D. (2018). When personal feels invasive: Foreseeing challenges in precision medicine communication. Journal of Health Communication. doi:10.1080/10810730.2017.1417514

Research with UGA students on public preferences for learning about uncertain science published in Frontiers of Communication.
Research on public understanding of scientific preprints featured in UGA Columns.
Scoping review on COVID-19 uncertainty communication published with students Rebekah Wicke and Blue Harvill in the Annals of the ICA.
Study of how public audiences evaluate media representations of uncertain science with graduate student Rebekah Wicke published in Public Understanding of Science.
Awarded a top faculty paper award with MA student Rebekah Wicke from the Communicating Science, Health, Environment & Risk (comSHER) division of the Association for Education in Journalism & Mass Communication, for the paper "How Lay Audiences Evaluate Scientific Uncertainty Disclosure: The Moderating Roles of Source and Preference for Communication of Uncertainty."
Research featured in an editorial from Annals of Behavioral Medicine about the importance of examining communication of uncertainty in precision medicine.