Ph.D., M.A. in social psychology, University of California, Los Angeles; B.S. in psychology, University of Wisconsin
This researcher is available for interviews.
To arrange an interview, contact the RAND Office of Media Relations at (310) 451-6913, or email media@rand.org.
More ExpertsRebecca Collins is chair of the RAND Human Subjects Protection Committee and a senior behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation. Her research examines the determinants and consequences of health risk behavior. Currently, she is studying the effectiveness of publically-funded social marketing campaigns to reduce the stigma of mental illness and increase treatment seeking. Much of her work has focused on media influences on health. She has held numerous NIH grants, including an evaluation of California's Mental Illness Stigma and Discrimination Reduction initiative, a national longitudinal study that linked exposure to sexual content in media and adolescent sexual behavior, and studies of HIV risk behavior and worked on a series of investigations examining alcohol advertising and youth drinking. Collins co-led a National Academy of Sciences panel examining the association between sexual content in media and child health and was a member of the American Psychological Association (APA) task force investigating the sexualization of young girls. She has served on the PHRESH family of studies for the past ten years, examining the impact of the neighborhood environment on low-income African Americans' health. Her work on military health includes coleading the DoD Women's reproductive Health Survey, and leading key chapters in RAND's report informing repeal of the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell Policy and the 2015 and 2018 DoD Health Related Behavior Survey chapters on sexual health and on LGB service members. Other areas of study include substance use, living with HIV infection, LGB health, and key publications on Social Comparison theory.
Interviews: BBC; CNN; HealthDay.com; NBC; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Reuters; USA Today; Washington Post
