Dr. Yaffa Shir-Raz
Sammy Ofer School of Communications
Accessibility menu
Areas of expertise
-
Health Communication: PR Strategies of Pharmaceutical Companies
-
Dr. Yaffa Shir-Raz (Ph.D., The University of Haifa, Israel) is a health and risk communication researcher, as well as a health journalist, and her interdisciplinary work in this field draws from both professions.
She is a researcher at the University of Haifa Health and Risk Communication Research Center, and a lecturer of health communication in the International Communication Program, Sammy Ofer School of Communication, IDC Herzliya, Israel.
Her research and teaching focus on the areas of health and risk communication, Health PR and persuasive communication. She focuses primarily on controversial issues, which involve uncertainty.
She studies the strategies and tactics taken by pharmaceutical companies to promote drugs, and thus on the question of how health risks associated with diseases and drugs are communicated by this industry, and how authorities regulate these promotion efforts.
In addition, her research focuses on health and risk communication during epidemics (EID communication), conducted under TELL ME and ASSET research projects, both funded by the European Commission.
She is also a senior health journalist for Menta Magazine, Yedioth Aharonot, Israel, and in the last 15 years focuses on investigative journalism.
Her book The complete Israeli Guide for Supplements (2008) was published by the Keter-books Publishing House, Israel.
Her book The Crash – The story of Mission STS-107 (2003), was published by Kinneret, Zmora-Bitan, Dvir – Publishing House.
Her book Open Heart: The story of a heart surgeon (2010), was published by Focus Publishing House.
Education
Ph.D., The University of Haifa, Israel.
-
Gesser-Edelsburg A Shir-Raz Y & Green MS. 2014. Why do parents who usually vaccinate their children hesitate or refuse? General good vs. individual risk. Journal of Risk Research, 1-20.
Gesser-Edelsburg A, Valter N, Shir-Raz Y & Green MS. 2015. Voluntary or Mandatory? The Valence Framing Effect of Attitudes Regarding HPV Vaccination. Journal of Health Communication: International Perspectives, 20(11): 1287-1293. DOI: 10.1080/10810730.2015.1018642
Gesser-Edelsburg A Shir-Raz Y, Haiek, S & Sassoni O. 2015. What Does the Public Know about Ebola? The Public's risk perceptions regarding the current Ebola in an as-yet uninfected country. American Journal of Infection Control, 43(7), 669-675.
Gesser-Edelsburg A Shir-Raz Y. (2015). Science vs fear: The Ebola quarantine debate as a case study that reveals how the public perceives risk. Journal of Risk Research, 2015 (published online November 5, 2015)
Gesser-Edelsburg A., Valter, N., Shir-Raz, Y. Mordinin, E. & Green, M.S. (2015). The public sphere in EID communication: Recipient or active and vocal partner? Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, 9(4):447-458. DOI:10.1017/dmp.2015.31
Gesser-Edelsburg A., Valter, N., Shir-Raz, Y. (2016). The "New Public" and the "Good Ol' Press": Evaluating Online News Sources during the 2013 Polio Outbreak in Israel. Health Communication, 18:1-11.
Gesser-Edelsburg A, Shir-Raz Y, Sassoni‐Bar Lev O, James, JJ, and Green M.S. 2015. Outbreak or epidemic? How Obama's language choice transformed the Ebola outbreak into an epidemic. Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, 21:1-5. DOI: 10.1017/dmp.2016.48
Gesser-Edelsburg A, Shir-Raz Y. Communicating risk for issues that involve "Uncertainty Bias": What can the Israeli case of water fluoridation teach us? Journal of Risk Research. In Process.