Dr. Sheila Murphy

Biography

Sheila Murphy is a full professor at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, where she researches individual-level factors such as education, age, and gender, as well as interpersonal and community-level factors that impact decision-making regarding health. For the past 20 years, Murphy has focused on the role of narrative storytelling in shaping public knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to health issues. In her experimental research, she explores how fictional characters transported into stories can help overcome objections to potentially threatening health information. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she and her colleagues developed short narratives intended to dispel common vaccine myths and increase vaccination rates among adults and children across the nation. Her domestic work includes collaborating with scriptwriters for popular television shows to evaluate the impact of health storylines, while her international projects have aimed at embedding health information in entertainment education programming. Murphy has received numerous awards for her contributions to public health communication, including the Gamechanger Award for creating a paradigm shift in public health understanding and the Everett Rogers Award for her outstanding contributions to the field.

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