Noar honored with prestigious health communication scholar award

Seth Noar — UNC Hussman’s James Howard and Hallie McLean Parker Distinguished Professor and a member of UNC’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center — has been selected for the Charles Atkin Translational Health Communication Scholar Award by the D.C. Health Communication Conference (DCHC) at George Mason University. 

The Atkin Award has been given every other year since 2011 to outstanding health communication scholars whose work has made important contributions to guiding health communication practices and policies. It was established in honor of the eminent health communication scholar, Charles Atkin, who passed away in 2012. 

Noar will accept the award at the May 1-3, 2025, DCHC conference in recognition of his important research concerning communication and health promotion including the design, implementation and evaluation of health messages and campaigns. His recent work focuses on cancer prevention and control, especially tobacco prevention and control messaging.  

Noar has published more than 250 research articles and scholarly chapters. He has also been a principal investigator, co-principal investigator or co-investigator on more than $50 million in grant-funded projects from the NIH and FDA — testing health communication strategies for health promotion and disease prevention.  

Noar has been repeatedly recognized as being in the top 1 percent of most cited researchers in the social sciences. In 2016, he was recognized with both the Lewis Donohew and National Communication Association outstanding health communication scholar awards. In 2017, he received the American Public Health Association’s Mayhew Derryberry Research award. In 2023, Noar was elected as a Fellow of the International Communication Association. 

Charles Atkin was as a member of the faculty in the Department of Communication at Michigan State University for 41 years, where he served as chair of the department for 15 years. His distinguished health communication research focused on public health communication policy, campaign strategies for prevention of breast cancer, risky alcohol use and adoption of health promoting behaviors. He was the author of numerous frequently cited research articles and four books on media and alcohol use. He also edited special journal issues concerning communication and health promotion and was called upon to advise major federal health agencies and testify before the U.S. Congress.  

 In 1998, he was honored with Michigan State’s University Distinguished Professor award. He was also elected as a Fellow of the International Communication Association. His body of work demonstrates the translational power of health communication research to guide informed evidence-based public health policies and practices. 

Past Atkin Translational Health Communication Scholar award recipients include: 

• 2011, David Gustafson, University of Wisconsin 
• 2013, Linda Neuhauser, University of California at Berkeley 
• 2015, Bradford Hesse, National Cancer Institute 
• 2017, Jay Bernhardt, Emerson College 
• 2019, Michelle Miller-Day, Chapman University 
• 2021, Kami Silk, University of Delaware 
• 2023, Mohan Dutta, Massey University