Rate My Professor Don Chaney

J. Don Chaney, Ph.D., MCHES®, FAAHE, is Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Science at The University of Alabama, a position he has held since August 2020. He earned his Ph.D. in Health Education and Promotion from The University of Alabama. Previously, he served as Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Education and Promotion at East Carolina University. Chaney also held faculty and administrative roles at the University of Florida and Texas A&M University. He is a Master Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES®) and has been recognized with several prestigious awards, including the American Association for Health Education (AAHE) Fellow Award, AAHE Horizon Award, AAHE Health Education Directory Technology Award, AAHE Presidential Citation, and The University of Alabama Jack Davis Professional Achievement Award.

Chaney's academic interests center on integrating technology into health education and health promotion, particularly through online learning and eHealth literacy initiatives. His research explores the development of theory-based distance education courses utilizing the Contextual Relative Distance Education Model to better serve time- and location-constrained students. Additional foci include how individuals seek, retrieve, and respond to online health information, assessing eHealth literacy among the public health workforce, and creating tailored cyberlearning courses to enhance eHealth literacy skills across diverse populations by bridging technology gaps. Chaney has made significant contributions to scholarly publishing, serving as the current Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Health Education and previously as Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Health Studies. He has also acted as Guest Editor/Co-Editor for The Health Education Monograph and the International Electronic Journal of Health Education. The majority of his publications address online course development and technological applications in health education, with over 2,700 citations documented on ResearchGate across 52 publications.