Faculty
Janelle Applequist
Associate Professor, Advertising and Public Relations, Director of Internships and Concentration Head, Integrated Public Relations and Advertising, Associate Director, Center for Sustainable Democracy, College of Arts and Sciences
CONTACT
Office: CIS 3099
Email
bio
Dr. Janelle Applequist (Ph.D., M.A., Penn State University) is an Associate Professor of Advertising and Public Relations at the Zimmerman School of Advertising and Mass Communications at the ßÙßÇÂþ». She serves as Director of Internships, Concentration Head for the Integrated Public Relations and Advertising sequence, and Associate Director for the Center for Sustainable Democracy in the College of Arts and Sciences.
As a transdisciplinary researcher, Dr. Applequist specializes in advertising and patient-centered health communication. Her expertise in mixed-methods research, particularly qualitative methodologies, enables deep investigations into complex healthcare communication challenges. She has secured substantial research funding as PI, Co-PI, Co-Investigator, or Consultant on various university, industry, and NIH-funded grants totaling over $62 million.
Since 2019, Dr. Applequist has served as an Academic Consultant on the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Patient Engagement Advisory Committee, contributing expertise on agency policies, clinical trial design, and patient-related issues. She has made five invited panel presentations to the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and Office of Prescription Drug Promotion, reaching audiences of over 700 attendees. These presentations were organized with the prestigious Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy.
Her primary research focuses on pharmaceutical advertising and messaging effectiveness, investigating patient responses through innovative analytical approaches. She has advanced methods to understand consumers' cognitive processing during advertisement viewing experiences. Her secondary research emphasizes the broader field of health communication, successfully bridging advertising principles with physician-focused health infrastructure changes and direct-to-patient recruitment.
Dr. Applequist currently serves as Co-Investigator on the NIH-funded Preventing Alzheimer's with Cognitive Training (PACT) study, working to enhance clinical trial participant engagement, recruitment, and retention. Through consultation with USF's Health Informatics Institute, she has led research phases for message design, testing, and dissemination across six international clinical trials focusing on rare diseases.
She serves on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Current Issues & Research in Advertising, is a member of the National Communication Association's Research Council, and is an alumni of the 2024 Association of National Advertisers (ANA) Educational Foundation's Visiting Professor Program. Dr. Applequist is the author of "Broadcast pharmaceutical advertising in the United States: Primetime pill pushers" and co-author of "CTE, media, and the NFL: Framing a public health crisis as a football epidemic."
Her research appears in prestigious journals including Annals of Family Medicine, International Journal of Advertising, Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, BMC Medical Research Methodology, Journal of Health Communication, Qualitative Health Research, Journal of Interactive Advertising, and Health Communication.
For more information about her work, welcomed collaboration opportunities, or media requests, please visit .
EDUCATION
- Ph.D. in Mass Communications (Penn State University)
- M.A. in Media Studies (Penn State University)
- B.A. in Journalism & Psychology minor (Penn State University)
TEACHING AREAS
Advertising, pharmaceutical advertising, and qualitative research methods
research specializations
Health communication, health policy, and health and political polarization