Rate My Professor Sung-Yeon Park

Sung-Yeon Park is a Professor in the Reynolds School of Journalism within Communications and the School of Public Health at the University of Nevada, Reno. She earned her Ph.D. in Life Sciences Communication from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, M.A. in Journalism and Mass Communication from Korea University in Seoul, Republic of Korea, and B.A. in Korean Language and Literature from Korea University. As a health communication researcher and practitioner, Park explores how communication enhances individual and societal well-being. Her research centers on the relationships among consumers, physicians, and healthcare marketers, analyzed through direct-to-consumer healthcare service advertisements and consumer attitudes toward advertising and healthcare consumerism. She addresses ethical practices in healthcare advertising to build trust, develops messages and tools for public education, health promotion, and policy discourse, and currently studies patient portal impacts on patient-provider relationships and outcomes.

Park previously served as Senior Researcher at the Pennington Cancer Institute, Renown Health, and Clinical Research Coordinator at the Veterans Administration Sierra Nevada Health Care System. Her work receives support from federal agencies and private foundations, earning multiple awards. Key publications include "Attitudes toward direct-to-consumer healthcare service advertising and perceptions of information features: Comparison of physicians and marketers" (in press, International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing), "Are patient-centered care, healthcare consumerism, and trust in physicians compatible?: Positioning analysis of the patient-provider relationship" (2025, Health Communication), "Marijuana message channels, health knowledge, law knowledge, and confidence in knowledge as risk and protective factors of marijuana use among college students" (2024, Journal of Drug Education), "Consumer perceptions of information features in healthcare service advertisements and attitudes toward advertising" (2023, International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing), "Analysis of direct-to-consumer healthcare service advertisements on television: An application of the patient expectation framework" (2023, Health Communication), "Patient-centered care and healthcare consumerism in online healthcare service advertisements: A positioning analysis" (2022, Journal of Patient Experience), and "US direct-to-consumer medical service advertisements fail to provide adequate information on quality and cost of care" (2021, Journal of Medical Ethics). She is a member of the National Communication Association.