Alfred McAlister, Ph.D.

Professor of Behavioral Sciences

University of Texas School of Public Health

Professor McAlister is a Texas native and UT Austin graduate (1972) with a doctoral and postdoctoral training at Stanford. Formerly with the faculty at the Harvard School of Public Health, he joined UTHealth in 1984 and become the first faculty member in Austin in 2002. He has helped lead well-known international and domestic population level health promotion experiments, including the North Karelia Project in Finland and the Texas Tobacco Prevention Pilot Initiative—both of which produced documented decreases in tobacco use and associated causes of death. As a world-recognized expert in communication and social-behavioral change, he has recently authored textbook and encyclopedia chapters on this topic and on the mass psychology of support for war.

In addition to work on innovation in digital, mobile and social media for promoting health behavior change among young adults, McAlister leads research on the effects of recreation in and exposure to “green-blue” environments in collaboration with the Austin Parks and Recreation Department and Westcave Outdoor Discovery Center.

Publications

McAlister A, Behavioral Journalism, Oxford Encyclopedia of Communication, Health & Risk Message Design & Processing, in press 2017.

Chalela, P., McAlister, A. L., Gallion, K. J., Muñoz, E., Despres, C., Akopian, D., ... & Ramirez, A. G. (2016). Facebook advertisement effects on conversions and enrollment to a SMS/text smoking cessation service for young adult Latinos. Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, 25(3 Supplement), A10-A10.

Ramirez, A. G., Chalela, P., Gallion, K. J., Muñoz, E., Despres, C., Akopian, D., ... & McAlister, A. L. (2016). Text messaging cessation service for young adult Latinos in South Texas: Program protocol and preliminary results. Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers & Prevention, 25(3 Supplement), A11-A11.

Ramirez, A. G., Gallion, K. J., Despres, C., Aguilar, R. P., Adeigbe, R. T., Seidel, S. E., & McAlister, A. L. (2015). Advocacy, Efficacy, and Engagement in an Online Network for Latino Childhood Obesity Prevention. Health promotion practice, 1524839915596523.

McAlister, A. L., & Wilczak, B. (2015). Moral Disengagement in “War Fever”: How Can We Resist?. In Handbook of International Negotiation (pp. 33-43). Springer International Publishing.

Korpelainen, V., Laatikainen, T., McAlister, A., & Puska, P. (2014). Pitkäranta project: Health collaboration across the Karelian border. Raportti: (Kansanterveylatios – KTL publication, Helsinki) 023.

Sterling, K. L., Ford, K. H., Park, H., & McAlister, A. L. (2014). Scales of smoking-related self-efficacy, beliefs, and intention: Assessing measurement invariance among intermittent and daily high school smokers. American Journal of Health Promotion, 28(5), 310-315.

McAlister, A. L. (2013). Health Communication. In Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine (pp. 910-912). Springer New York.

Ramirez, A.G., Chalela, P., Gallion, K.J., McAlister, A. (2014) Diffusion Acceleration: A Model for Behavior Change and Social Mobilization, Huff, R. M., Kline, M. V., & Peterson, D. V. (Eds.). Health promotion in multicultural populations: SAGE

Ford, K.H., Oladapo, A.O., Sterling, K.L., Diamond, P.M., Kelder, S.H., & McAlister, A. (2013). Assessing the psychometric properties of smoking-related attitudes, self-efficacy, and intention among a diverse population of middle school students. Addicttive Behaviors 38(8), 2378-83.

Sterling, K.L., Ford, K.H., Park, H., & McAlister, A.L. (2013). Scales of Smoking-Related Self-Efficacy, Beliefs, and Intention: Assessing Measurement Invariance Among Intermittent and Daily High School Smokers. American Journal of Health Promotion. [Epub ahead of print]

Sterling, K., Ford, K., Park, H., Diamond, P., & McAlister, A. (2013). Assessing the invariance of smoking- related self-efficacy, beliefs, and intention among high school current smokers. Substance Use & Misuse 48(7), 477-83.

Sterba KR1, Rabius V, Carpenter MJ, Villars P, Wiatrek D, McAlister A. Dyadic efficacy for smoking cessation: preliminary assessment of a new instrument. (2013) Nicotine & Tobacco Research 13(3), 194-201.