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NORC at the University Chicago

Health Communication AI

Young woman reading message on her smartphone while standing in the living room. Her hair is dyed teal and her left arm has no forearm.
Combining the trust-building ability of digital opinion leaders with the scalability of AI to revolutionize health communication
  • Dates
    December 2023 – Present

Problem

Artificial intelligence is drastically changing the way we engage with health information.

The rise of a fragmented ecosystem, inaccurate information, a widening digital divide, and the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) have introduced new complexities to health communication.

Public health is particularly affected as individuals increasingly turn to the internet and social media to make informed health decisions.

Increasingly, people are engaging with AI agents for information about health. Currently, about 17 percent of adults use AI at least once a month to access health information. That percentage increases substantially among youth, where it is estimated that over a quarter of U.S. teens use generative AI to seek such information.

Solution

NORC is spearheading Health Communication AI, a multi-pronged initiative that is examining the intersection of AI and health in today’s AI-driven communications environment—across multiple dimensions.  

This initiative is developing a portfolio of research and building the evidence base related to AI and health communication.  

First, we have developed an AI agent that we are evaluating for use in many different health contexts. By leveraging the extensive knowledge base of digital opinion leadership and integrating it with generative AI technology, our AI agent delivers relevant and empathetic health information when and where it is needed. With its capacity for social listening, sentiment analysis, and accurate generative response, our agent is poised to address critical gaps in digital health communication.  

We are also helping build an entirely new scientific agenda that includes the development of:  

  • New and updated theoretical frameworks  
  • Pilot and feasibility studies to measure the effectiveness of such an integrated AI system on accuracy, empathy, and user response  
  • Longitudinal studies to examine impact on health behaviors  
  • Implications and recommendations for policy, ethics, and privacy, as well as practical application 

Result

To address modern health communication challenges at scale, NORC is designing and leading several innovative projects under its Health Communication AI initiative.

This includes:

  • Collaborating with Amazon Web Services to develop a supervised model of online covid vaccine information.
  • Developing and testing an AI agent trained on evidence-based health information, which we are testing for a variety of topics including HPV vaccination and cardiovascular disease. 
  • Beginning a new project with Amazon Web Services to evolve our AI agent. 
  • Partnering with OpenAI to evaluate AI agents’ performance and develop benchmarks for key metrics such as accuracy, harm potential, and empathy. 
  • Collaborating with colleagues to examine cross-cultural use of AI and adolescent girls’ body image perceptions. 
  • Beginning to explore the impacts of AI engagement on youth mental health and develop supportive communication resources. 

As part of this work, we have shared our insights through journal articles and at conferences. Our hope is that the body of work that results from our Health Communication AI initiative fosters innovation in public health and medical communication and enables additional research to create an evidence base for AI use in health communication.   

If you want to work with us as part of our Health Communication AI initiative, contact  healthcommai@norc.org. 

Project Leads

Resources

FAQ