Faculty & Staff

Thomas Gordon, PhD
Professor

As a Professor of Health Communication Dr. Gordon teaches courses on health communication & informatics, research methodology, and human neuroscience. He also teaches graduate-level courses on research design and multivariate statistical analysis and is a specialist in the area of cognitive mapping. Dr. Gordon is the current and founding editor of Communication Abstracts, the primary abstracting service for the field of communication research. His most recent research publications have focused on psychoneuroimmunology and ways to impact health through effective message strategies. Dr. Gordon recently served as a Senior Consultant in the newly formed Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch at the National Cancer Institute.

Education:

Montana State University, BS
Michigan State University, MA
Michigan State University, Ph.D.

Research Interests:

Health Communications
The role of attitudes, values and beliefs in health maintenance.
Violence in the media as a health issue
Public Health issues associated with cancer risk perception.
Research Methodology

Recent Grants

T. F. Gordon (PI): PA Tobacco Settlement Grant, Temple University OVPR “Risk Communication Laboratory: Modeling Health Crisis & Emergency Risk Communication.”  This project establishes a laboratory to study risk perception and crisis communication. Role: Principal Investigator.  (2005-2006)

T. F. Gordon (Co-I): PA Department of Health, Office of Public Health Preparedness:  “Mental Health Risk Communication for Emergency Preparedness- Phase II: Risk Communication to Healthcare Workers for Smallpox Vaccination”.  This project tests the feasibility of developing and applying perceptual mapping (multidimensional scaling) methods to study emergency health personnel perceptions of the unsuccessful smallpox vaccination campaign and apply the results to message redesign. (2004-2006)

T. F. Gordon (Co-PI):  Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: P. Murphy (PI). "Network Analysis of Tobacco Issues Management Strategies Before and After the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement: Computer Assisted Content Analysis of the Tobacco Settlement Documents” (2003-2006)  This project uses data-mining techniques to search the millions of settlement documents for advertising and marketing strategies employed by the tobacco industry during specified times of challenge or crisis.  Results will be used to recommend counter-strategies for future situations.

Recent Publications

Gordon, T. F., Chadwick, A., Hogan, S, & Massett, H.  Recommendations for advancing the Healthy People 2010 Health Communication Objectives: Establishing priorities & developing strategies.  Report to the Health Communication Working Group, APHA, 2000.

Kreps, G. & Gordon, T. F.  Centers for excellence in health communication: Health communication objective 11-5.  In Communicating health: Priorities and strategies for progress: Action plans to achieve the health communication objectives in Healthy People 2010.  Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.  pp. 93-112, 2003.

Bass, S.B., Ruzek ,S.B.; Fleisher, L; McKeown-Conn , N; Gordon, T. F; and Moore D. Relationship of Internet health information use with patient behavior and self-efficacy: Experiences of newly diagnosed cancer patients who contact the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Information Service. J Health Communication.  March, 2006.

Garvin, J.H, Gordon, T. F, & Ducette, J., Development of a Public Health Assessment Tool: Tool Construction and Validation.  Perspectives in Health Information Management  May, 2006.

Bass, S.B., Ruzek, S.B., Gordon, T.F., Hanlon, A.  “Preparedness for a smallpox outbreak:  Comparing metrics for assessing levels of vaccination among healthcare workers by state.”  Epidemiology and Infection, Fall 2006.