Faculty & Staff

Sarah Bauerle Bass, PhD, MPH
Assistant Professor
Director, Undergraduate Program

Dr. Bass is an Associate Professor of Public Health and undergraduate program director in the Department of Public Health. She has almost twenty years of experience and training in communication message development, public health research and teaching.

Bass currently teaches the two-semester writing intensive program planning and evaluation course which is the capstone experience for public health majors. To teach public health program planning, she requires her students to write a hypothetical grant proposal, where students must choose a health topic, a target audience and develop a health behavior intervention based on the needs of that community. Under her leadership as the director, the undergraduate program’s curriculum now serves as a national model for colleges and universities seeking to implement public health courses on the undergraduate level. Bass is also faculty advisor of Eta Sigma Gamma, the undergraduate public health student society. Dr. Bass has won the prestigious Lindback Award for excellence in teaching (2007), as well as the College of Health Professions’ Excellence in Teaching Award (2006) and the Distinguished Teaching Award from the College of Liberal Arts, Department of Women’s Studies (1998).

Bass’ research includes studying how the use of Internet Health Information affects patient decision making, self efficacy and patient behavior. In a study funded by the National Cancer Institute in which she was the Principal Investigator, Dr. Bass studied how newly diagnosed cancer patients use Internet health information and its relationship to feelings of self efficacy and patient behavior. Currently, she is involved in studying self efficacy in disaster first responders to deal with the media in providing disaster terror event information to the public.

She is also currently involved with using perceptual mapping and psycho-physiological measure techniques to study reactions to smallpox vaccination among health care workers, compliance intent to be quarantined by the general public in the case of an avian flu epidemic, HIV/AIDS case-manager opinions about their clients and to develop colorectal cancer screening messages for low-literacy clinic populations, which has also been funded by the National Cancer Institute. In addition, Dr. Bass has developed and implemented a number of community based health education programs, including interventions in the areas of HIV/AIDS, Drug Abuse Prevention and Child Care Education. Before receiving her Ph.D., Bass developed and implemented state-wide HIV/AIDS media campaigns and has been involved with media-developed public health messages for over 20 years.

Dr. Bass is the author of many articles and has presented over 35 abstracts in juried meetings. She has been a reviewer for several scientific journals and has served as a primary reviewer on a patient decision-making guide for entering clinical trials developed by ECRI, the Journal of Health Communication, and the American Journal of Public Health. She has also recently written a guide on Health Literacy for Fox Chase Cancer Center and the Pennsylvania Department of Health. Her recent publications have appeared in the Journal of Health Psychology, the Journal of Health Communication, Epidemiology and Infection, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, and the Journal of the National Medical Association. Dr. Bass is a member of numerous professional organizations including the American Public Health Association, the Society for Public Health Education, the Pennsylvania Public Health Association and the American Medical Informatics Association. She also sits on the Health Communication Committee of Healthy People 2010 for the Department of Health and Human Services and the Undergraduate Public Health Education committee for the Association of Schools for Public Health.

Bass received her Ph.D. from Temple University’s Department of Public Health in Health Studies as well as her MPH in Community Health Education and a B.S. in Radio-Television-Film from Northwestern University in the School of Communications.

Concentrations:

HIV/AIDS; sexuality; health communications; women's health; health behavior theory; program planning and evaluation

Recent Publications:
“Increasing colorectal cancer screening among African Americans; Linking risk perceptions to interventions targeting patients, communities and clinicians: A review of the literature. Ward, S., Lin, K., Meyer, B., Bass, SB, Parameswaran, L., Gordon, TF & Ruzek, S. (2008). Journal of the National Medical Association, 100(6), 748-58.

“Mapping perceptions related to acceptance of smallpox vaccination under varying levels of threat among hospital emergency room personnel”. Bass, S. B., Gordon, T. F., Ruzek, S. B., & Hausman, A. J. (2008). Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, 6(2), 179-90.