Chair, RAND Human Subjects Protection Committee; Senior Behavioral Scientist; Professor, RAND School of Public Policy
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Rebecca Collins is chair of the RAND Human Subjects Protection Committee, a senior behavioral scientist at RAND, and a professor of policy analysis at the RAND School of Public Policy. Her research examines the determinants and consequences of health risk behavior. She is studying the effectiveness of publicly funded social marketing campaigns to reduce the stigma of mental illness and increase use of appropriate well-being supports, including 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 with adolescent sexual behavior; studies of HIV risk behavior; and (as co-PI) 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 task force investigating sexualization of young girls. Her work on military health includes co-leading the DoD Women's Reproductive Health Survey; a survey of military reproductive health care providers; leading key chapters in RAND's report informing policy regarding sexual orientation and military service; and the 2015, 2018, and 2022 DoD Health Related Behavior Survey chapters on sexual health and LGBT service members. Other research areas include substance use, living with HIV, LGB health, and publications on Social Comparison theory. She holds a Ph.D. in social psychology from UCLA.
Ph.D., M.A. in social psychology, University of California, Los Angeles; B.S. in psychology, University of Wisconsin
