Xuan Zhu, Ph.D., M.S.

SUMMARY

Xuan Zhu, Ph.D. is a social and behavioral science researcher whose research interests and expertise center around three intersecting domains:

• Health decision-making and behavior change
• Health communication
• Health equity

Dr. Zhu’s primary focus is developing and evaluating evidence-based health communication and behavior change interventions that are informed by principles of behavioral and communication science. The goal of this research is to aid in improving individuals’ understanding of health information, motivating health risk reduction behaviors and removing barriers to patient-centered care.

Dr. Zhu is particularly interested in understanding factors influencing disadvantaged populations’ health care decisions and behaviors within the socio-cultural context. She uses this knowledge to inform the development and evaluation of interventions at the patient, clinician, health system and community levels to address key determinants of health disparities.

Dr. Zhu’s emerging research focus is on identifying the “why” and “how” of clinician decision-making and behavior change in relation to the implementation and adoption of evidence-based practice innovations. The goal of this research is to develop and optimize implementation strategies that enable faster and sustainable translation of research into routine practice and promote equity in patient care.

Focus areas

• Applying a theory-based, systematic approach to intervention development, implementation and evaluation. Dr. Zhu’s work focuses on the application of psychological, communication, and implementation theories and approaches to understand how patients and clinicians process health-related information and make health care decisions. This knowledge is then used to guide the development, implementation, and evaluation of interventions that promote behavior change in patients to improve health outcomes, such as completing cancer screenings, and in clinicians to improve health care delivery, such as adopting an AI-enabled clinical decision support tool.

• Developing evidence-based communication and dissemination strategies to facilitate delivery of patient-centered care. Dr. Zhu’s work focuses on identifying effective communication and dissemination strategies of medical research and health-care related information. The goal of this research is to make health and health care-related evidence understandable and actionable for patients. Further, this research aims to facilitate faster and sustainable adoption of practice innovations among clinicians.

  Dr. Zhu’s research examines the interplay of an array of factors at different loci and phases of the communication and dissemination process. The goal of this examination is to identify the combinations of audience, message, medium and contextual factors that contribute to positive and lasting effects on knowledge and skill acquisition as well as attitude and behavior change among patients and clinicians.

• Promoting health equity through stakeholder-driven interventions. Intersecting her research interests in health decision-making and health communication, Dr. Zhu’s work in the health equity space focuses on developing stakeholder-driven health communication and behavior change interventions. This work is done in collaboration with community and clinical partners with the aim to increase access to equitable health care, reduce disease burden and improve health outcomes among disadvantaged populations.

Significance to patient care

The theory-based, systematic approach Dr. Zhu applies to intervention development and evaluation ensures that the intervention components and strategies are tailored to the needs of the target population and the health care delivery settings in which they are being implemented. Dr. Zhu’s work aims to improve patient health outcomes, enable faster and sustainable translation of innovations into routine practice, and promote equity in health care.