Daniel Catalán Matamoros

Daniel Catalán is a health communication scholar with nearly 20 years of field and research experience. He stands out for his extensive international background in public health organisations (WHO and ECDC) and strong track record of high-impact publications. Accredited as a full professor (university professor) by ANECA in 2020, he holds the distinguished Spanish I3 certification of excellence in international research. He has led and been part of national and international research projects and is the director of MEDIALAB, the UC3M research group Analytics, media and public engagement: communication, journalism and technology laboratory. According to GS, his scientific contributions have received more than 2600 citations (h-index = 27) and he has published more than 75 papers in JCR or SJR-indexed journals. He has supervised 9 PhD theses (3 ongoing), received the official recognition of 2 research periods (six-year periods: 2005-2010; 2011-2016) and is currently waiting for the assessment of his 3rd one (2017-2022). Daniel’s research interests focus on a) effects of media uses on public health, b) journalistic coverage of health topics with special interest in vaccines, c) health-related mis/disinformation and fake news in the digital media, d) public understanding of health/science-related risks, and e) communication experiences of patients using digital health technologies with special interest in pacemakers. His latest publications in high-impact factor journals explore media-related phenomena for public communication of vaccines including coverage analysis in different countries, deepening in the anti-vaccine lobby and uncertainties or disbeliefs especially in connection with framing, sourcing and agenda-setting theories. His latest book, "Health communication and promotion in the digital era," co-edited with other health communication scholars (Terrón & Peñafiel), aimed to increase research and policy awareness of this important field. Lately, his scientific contributions in relation to COVID-19 have been recognised by the World Health Organization and included in the research selection "Global literature on coronavirus disease." Daniel has been PI (4 projects) and a team member (6 projects) in national and international funded projects in the fields of health communication, digital health, fake news, education and healthcare services research. He currently leads the national project in Spain, "Health Communication," funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation.