Featured Scholar: Krista Longtin, Ph.D.
Assistant Dean for Faculty Affairs and Professional Development, Indiana University School of Medicine
Associate Professor, Obstetrics and Gynecology and Communication Studies
Improv(ing) Communication About Science and Health: How Theatre Can Help Experts Connect and Collaborate with the Community
Communication is a fundamental part of the human experience and a critical element of the scientific process. We’ve learned so much in the past 50 years about how to communicate effectively, especially in science and health, but we’ve struggled to get that new knowledge into education programs. Dr. Krista Longtin's research seeks to answer the questions: what is the best way to train experts on how to talk about science and health? And, how can we revise curriculum to teach physicians, scientists, and healthcare providers to communicate most effectively to non-experts, including patients, children, and policymakers?
Dr. Longtin is proud to have worked with multiple community organizations to improve science and health communication. For example, she worked with the Evangelical Community Church in Bloomington and the Center for Interfaith Cooperation to hold community conversations about the shared values between science and faith. Each year, the Communicating Science graduate minor program and workshop series trains hundreds of students and faculty on what works in communication strategies. Dr. Longtin and her collaborators actively seek to upend the “deficit model” of science communication, a misconception that just simply giving more information will change decision-making behavior. Rather than just sharing information, physicians and scientists must be engaged in helping their patients and community members see themselves as collaborators in sharing information and making decisions. By dispelling this myth and teaching collaborative communication, Dr. Longtin and her collaborators help regular Indiana people make better decisions about health and science every day.
Selected Publications in IU Indianapolis ScholarWorks
With many scholarly articles contributed to IU Indianapolis's free, open access repository, Dr. Longtin has made research knowledge available to researchers, students, and readers around the world.
Kochhar K, Longtin K, Wilson S, Ho M, Brokaw J, Hobson T, Wallach P. “Building Faculty Learning Communities for Medical Education Scholarship in a Multi-Campus System: Four Years of Experience.” Association of American Medical Colleges Central Group on Educational Affairs Conference, Milwaukee, WI, April 3-5, 2024. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/40127
Chan CA, Chou E, LaDisa AG, Mehta A, Zelenski A, Longtin K. Using nominal group technique to determine skills that applied improvisation can teach health profession education learners. PEC Innov. 2023;3:100194. Published 2023 Jul 25. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/40148
Dees, M. L., Carpenter, J. S., & Hoffman-Longtin, K. (2022). Communication Between Registered Nurses and Family Members of Intensive Care Unit Patients. Critical Care Nurse, 42(6), 25–34. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/36836
Longtin K, Wisner R, Organ JM. It is essential to connect: Evaluating a Science Communication Boot Camp. Anat Rec (Hoboken). 2022;305(4):992-999. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/34466
Longtin, K., & Binion, K. (2021). Creating Choice and Building Consensus: Invitational Rhetoric as a Strategy to Promote Vasectomies in the United States. Rhetoric of Health & Medicine, 4(3), Article 3. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/37708
Ridley-Merriweather, K. E., Hoffmann-Longtin, K., & Owusu, R. K. (2021). Exploring How the Terms “Black” and “African American” May Shape Health Communication Research. Health Communication, 1–7. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/31307
Owusu R, Ridley-Merriweather K, Hoffmann-Longtin K. Black vs African American: Why are communication and clinical researchers not paying attention to what descendants of the African Diaspora want to be called, and why is that a problem? Proceedings of IMPRS. 2020;3(1). https://hdl.handle.net/1805/40149
Find more free articles in IU Indianapolis ScholarWorks.