Introduction

Dr. Lueck’s research addresses the following topics: evidence-based health promotion and behavior change, cognition and emotion, mental illness and suicide risk/prevention, related co-morbidities (e.g., substance abuse), media effects, and emerging technologies (e.g., eye-tracking).

Bio

Dr. Lueck received her Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of Minnesota in 2016. She joined the Communication Department at Texas A&M University as an Assistant Professor in 2016. Her research focuses on novel approaches to health communication interventions targeting people with disordered cognition, using eye-tracking technology and ecological methods (e.g., ecological momentary assessment). Specifically, Dr. Lueck investigates how and under what circumstances cognitive biases influence perceptions and beliefs about the world, the self, and the environment, that create and sustain barriers to health behavior change and explores implications for effectively tailored health communication interventions. To do this, Dr. Lueck examines the lived experience of vulnerable populations (e.g., adolescents; adults affected by depression), prevalent media use in this population (e.g., social media; general news media), to then inform and test effectively tailored mediated health communication interventions, focusing on indicators such as attention, interpretation, memory, and behavior change. She is the recipient of the 2021 TAMU CRISS Grant, the 2020 TAMU COVID-19 Innovation Grant, and the 2019 TAMU T3 grant, and has several grant proposals under review at the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. Dr. Lueck’s research has been published in various peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Health Communication, Health Communication, Social Science & Medicine, and Psychiatry Research. Dr. Lueck has presented her research at both national and international conferences and her research has been mentioned by various national news networks (e.g., VOX) and health organizations (e.g., CDC). Her research on health campaigns promoting COVID-19 vaccination won the top paper award from the International Communication Association (Health Communication Division) in 2021. 

Courses Taught

• COMM 689: Mass Media and Health
• COMM 664: Media Processes and Effects
• COMM 470: Health Message Design
• COMM 450: Media Campaigns
• COMM 325: Persuasion
• COMM 203: Public Speaking

Representative Publications

Lueck, J. A., & Poe, M. (2023). Werther or Papageno? Examining the effects of news reports of celebrity suicide versus non-celebrity peer suicide on intentions to seek help among vulnerable young adults. Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior, published online. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/sltb.13004

Lueck, J. A., & Callaghan, T. (2022). Inside the ‘black box’ of COVID-19 vaccination beliefs: Revealing the relative importance of public confidence and news consumption habits. Social Science & Medicine, 298, 114874. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.114874

Lueck, J. A. (2021). Help-seeking intentions in the U.S. population during the COVID-19 pandemic: Examining the role of COVID-19 financial hardship, suicide risk, and stigma. Psychiatry Research, 303, 114069. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychres.2021.114069

Lueck, J. A., & Spiers, A. (2020). Which Beliefs Predict Intention to Get Vaccinated against COVID-19? A Mixed-Methods Reasoned Action Approach Applied to Health Communication. Journal of Health Communication, 25(10), 790–798. https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2020.1865488