I study how and why people make decisions about health care. My focus is on shared decision-making, which involves equal participation between patients and health care providers in their communication about treatment and management options. I am particularly interested in using deliberative documents such as patient decision aids to investigate relationships between practitioners’ knowledge of evidence-based medicine and patients’ experiential and embodied knowledge. By using these dimensions as a rhetorical framework, I address the communication disparities of traditional patient and provider roles.

My ongoing research project explores how health information technology can contribute digital tools that access and deliver information to balance the contributions of all stakeholders in medical decision-making. I am leading an interdisciplinary study with physicians and computer scientists to develop an mHealth app for people who need information about the causes, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of osteoporosis. Research team members are working with information technology administrators to integrate the app into patients’ electronic health records. Our goal is to begin a clinical trial at the Penn State College of Medicine in the next year.