Ayo Olagoke, PhD, MPH

Professional Background

Dr. Ayo Olagoke is a public health communication researcher whose work focuses on enhancing the reach and effectiveness of health information by integrating science, the arts, and emerging technologies. She earned her Master of Public Health from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and completed her PhD in Community Health Sciences at the University of Illinois, Chicago, where she specialized in addressing health misinformation related to HPV vaccination among religious parents of unvaccinated adolescents.
Dr. Olagoke completed her postdoctoral training at Washington University in St. Louis, where she served at the Health Communication Research Lab. There, she co-led the development of a health misinformation surveillance and response system designed to track the spread of health (mis)information in local communities. This initiative, originally piloted in St. Louis, has since expanded to nine states.
More recently, Dr. Olagoke has been using artificial intelligence to develop innovative health communication tools, including web applications, videos, and graphics, to address the spread of health misinformation and increase access to credible health information across underserved population groups.

• PhD, Community Health Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
• MPH, Master of Public Health, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria

Research

Overview

Dr. Ayo Olagoke’s research focuses on creating evidence-based, community-driven health communication systems that increase the reach and effectiveness of health information. Since 2022, she has co-led multi-state projects designed to track and respond to the health information needs of local communities, building listening infrastructures that detect public concerns and misinformation trends. A central component of her work, the iHeard project, collects insights from over 500 individuals weekly to inform rapid public health responses, such as guiding lead screening campaigns or coordinating emergency communication after natural disasters. Her scholarship integrates empirical research, storytelling, and artificial intelligence (AI) to design persuasive, theory-informed messages that improve health literacy and promote behavior change.
Dr. Olagoke’s work has received support from the NIH, CDC, and local health departments. She is advancing a new line of inquiry that uses AI to personalize and scale trusted health communication, such as chatbots that provide evidence-based information from credible sources like the CDC and USPSTF. A first-author publication on COVID-19 messaging was recognized as one of the most cited papers of 2021 in the British Journal of Health Psychology. With a background in scriptwriting and formal AI training, Dr. Olagoke is dedicated to enhancing public health outcomes by integrating science, narrative, and technology to deliver tailored, high-quality health information to underserved populations.
Research area of interest: Technology-based health communication; Health misinformation interventions; Vaccine-preventable disease interventions; Cancer communication

• Olagoke, Ayokunle , Adebayo, Comfort, Aderonmu, Joseph, Adeaga, Emmanuel, Johnson, Kimberly. 2025. Evaluation of an Artificial Intelligence-Generated Health Communication Material on Bird Flu Precautions. Zoonotic Diseases . https://www.mdpi.com/2813-0227/5/3/22
• Olagoke, Ayokunle, Mwobobia, Judith, Broadus, Damon. 2025. Health Communication
• Kreuter, M., W, Butler, T, Kinzer, H, Carter, T, Laker, P., A, Caburnay, C, Olagoke, A, Skinner, K, Broadus, D, Davis, M., H. 2024. Addressing COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy With Community Distribution of Conversation Cards.. American journal of public health, 114 (S1), S87-S91
• Arambul, Natalie, Sraboni, Syeda, Chukwunweike, Josephine, Olagoke, Ayokunle. 2023. Exploring the Association between Trust in Healthcare Entities and Exposure to Emerging Health Misinformation in Nebraska: A Pilot Study. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 67 (1), 1731-1734. https://doi.org/10.1177/21695067231192887
• Olagoke, A, Hebert-Beirne, J, Floyd, B, Caskey, R, Boyd, A, Molina, Y. 2023. The effectiveness of a religiously framed HPV vaccination message among Christian parents of unvaccinated adolescents in the United States.. Journal of communication in healthcare, 16 (2), 215-224
• Johnson, K., J, Weng, O, Kinzer, H, Olagoke, A, Golla, B, O'Connell, C, Butler, T, Worku, Y, Kreuter, M., W. 2023. iHeard STL: Development and first year findings from a local surveillance and rapid response system for addressing COVID-19 and other health misinformation.. PloS one, 18 (11), e0293288
• Olagoke, A, Reyes, K, San Miguel, L., G, Torres, P, Robledo, C, Kling, W, Medina, M, Arroyo, J, Garcia, C, Coronado, N, Hernandez, O, Lucio, A, Norris, H., T, Henderson, V, Molina, Y. 2022. Intentional Storytelling to Sustain Low-cost/Free Breast Cancer Services: A Latina Example of Community-driven Advocacy.. Progress in community health partnerships : research, education, and action, 16 (2), 205-215
• Olagoke, A., A, Olagoke, O., O, Hughes, A., M. 2020. Exposure to coronavirus news on mainstream media: The role of risk perceptions and depression.. British journal of health psychology, 25 (4), 865-874