Departmental Affiliations
Contact Info
Research Interests
Alcohol, alcohol policy, globalization, media, advocacy, media advocacy, youth, community organizing
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Experiences & Accomplishments
Dr. Jernigan's work has focused on public health practice with a particular interest in alcohol policy. He has written about and worked extensively in the field of media advocacy, the strategic use of the mass media to influence public health policy. He has also served as an adviser to the World Health Organization and the World Bank on the role of alcohol in health and development.
Dr. Jernigan is the Director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and in that capacity pioneers in the monitoring of youth exposure to alcohol advertising, including the development of best practices in monitoring as well as standard measures for reporting levels of youth exposure and for comparing it to adult exposure in various media. This work is primarily in the United States although he has provided technical assistance to researchers doing similar work in the European Union. The Center has also conducted content analyses of alcohol advertising, with a particular focus on the advertising most likely to be seen by youth. The Center also develops translational materials and training curricula in the areas of alcohol taxation, alcohol outlet density, and dram shop liability. These include case studies, legal research, research-to-practice action guides, and training curricula.
He leads a four-university collaborative effort to build the research base in support of translation of effective alcohol pricing strategies into public health practice. Specifically, this project evaluates the public health impact of recent alcohol price changes in Illinois and Massachusetts; models the economic and employment effects of alcohol price increases in several states; models the effects of alcohol tax increases at the level of the individual drinker, segmented by income as well as by drinking behavior; and develops case studies on efforts to influence alcohol pricing in Illinois, Massachusetts and Maryland.
Alcohol brand preference data is the missing link in establishing relationships between levels of alcohol advertising and youth drinking behavior. He is working in collaboration with Dr. Rimal and Dr. Borzekowski and a team at Boston University School of Public Health led by Dr. Michael Siegel to develop and analyze a new stream of youth alcohol brand preference data, and combine these data with analyses of youth exposure to alcohol marketing, other media, and normative beliefs.
Honors & Awards
“Highly Commended” in the British Medical Association Book Awards 2012 for WHO Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health (authored one of the three chapters)
National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NASADAD) Award of Excellence, 2010
Addiction Book Prize, 2004, for Alcohol in Developing Societies (co-author).
National Citation of Merit Award, American Council on Alcohol Problems, 1996.
Outstanding Teaching Assistant Award, University of California at Berkeley Department of Sociology, 1983-84.
Select Publications
My recent publications focus on the global spread of alcohol marketers, youth alcohol consumption by brand and what this suggests about the effects of marketing, results from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth's monitoring of youth exposure to alcohol advertising in the United States, consumption and health effects of alcohol taxation, translation of evidence-based recommendations regarding reduction of excessive alcohol use and related problems into public health practice, and alcohol marketing activities in digital and social media. For more information, please contact me directly.
Jernigan DH, Babor T. The concentration of the global alcohol industry and its penetration in the African Region. Addiction, in press.
Ross CS, Ostroff J, Siegel MB, DeJong W, Naimi TS, Jernigan DH. Exposure to magazine advertising for alcohol brands most commonly consumed by youth: Evidence of directed marketing. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, in press.
Jernigan D, Ross C, Ostroff J, McKnight-Eily L, Brewer RD. Youth exposure to alcohol advertising on television – 25 markets, United States. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 62:997-880, 2013.
Jernigan D, Rushman A. Measuring youth exposure to alcohol marketing on social networking sites: Challenges and prospects. Journal of Public Health Policy, epub ahead of print, 2013.
Jernigan DH, Sparks M, Yang E, Schwartz R. Using public health and community partnerships to reduce alcohol outlet density. Preventing Chronic Disease, 10:120090, 2013.