Susan Ennett, PhD

About

Susan Ennett, PhD, is a public health researcher, teacher, mentor and vice chair for Academic Affairs for the Department of Health Behavior. Honored as the recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award for Post-Baccalaureate Teaching and Mentoring in 2015, she said “My goal is to encourage students to explore and develop their interests while thinking critically, applying rigorous standards and always questioning their own assumptions.” She is a professor in the Department of Health Behavior.
 
Ennet's research focuses on how social contexts, including family, peers, schools, and neighborhoods, interrelate in promoting and constraining health risk behaviors over the early life course. Recent research has explored the social contexts of health behaviors related to  youth alcohol and tobacco use as well as prevention of risky health behaviors  through family-based programs and school policies.
 
She teaches an elective on adolescent health risk behaviors and instructs in the required research methods course for doctoral students.

Representative Courses

Adolescent Health, HBEH 726

Doctoral Advanced Research Methods I, HBEH 760 | Syllabus

Research Activities

Research interests
Adolescent health
Cancer
Child development
Health behavior
Substance abuse
Violence prevention

Research activities
Dr. Ennett's research focuses on the etiology and prevention of youth health risk behaviors. Her primary behavioral focus is tobacco, alcohol and other drug use; she also researches youth suicide, violence and dating violence, and risky sexual behavior. Her research focuses on how social contexts, including family, peers, schools and neighborhoods, interrelate in promoting and constraining health risk behaviors over the early life course. Her prevention research concerns development and evaluation of family-based youth substance use and violence prevention programs, and examination of the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based school substance use prevention programs and school wellness policies. She teaches an elective on adolescent health risk behaviors and instructs in the required research methods course for doctoral students.

Key Publications

Developmental Outcomes of Using Physical Violence Against Dates and Peers. M Chen, C David-Ferdon, S Ennett, V Foshee, N Gottfredson, N Latzman, H Reyes, A Tharp (2016). The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine, 58.

Strength and comprehensiveness of school wellness policies in southeastern US school districts. Cox MJ, Ennett ST, Ringwalt CL, Hanley SM, Bowling JM. (2016). Journal of School Health, 86(9), 631-7.

Examining explanations for the link between bullying perpetration and physical dating violence perpetration: Do they vary by bullying victimization? Foshee, V.A., Benefield, T.S., McNaughton-Reyes, H.L., Eastman, M., Vivolo-Kantor, A.M., Basile, K.C., Ennett, S.T., & Faris, R.  (2016). Aggressive Behavior, 42.

Education