Student Showcase: Ariel Balaban

HBS student, Ariel Balaban, reflects on merging public health and visual design, building community with her MHS cohort, and balancing her responsibilities as a research assistant for three different projects.

Hometown: Little Silver, New Jersey
Program: MHS in Social Factors in Health
Fun fact: “I ran the full Potomac River Run Marathon in Washington, D.C. last year.”

Passionate about translating complex health data into engaging visual communication, Ariel Balaban joined the Department of Health, Behavior and Society in 2020. As an undergraduate, Balaban majored in public health and minored in graphic design. Her unique skillset has already served her well.

Since beginning the MHS in Social Factors in Health program, Balaban has had an opportunity to partner with three different research projects – ranging in scope from the greenwashing of tobacco products to overdose prevention. Under the guidance of HBS faculty member, Meghan Moran, PhD, she has collaborated with organizations like the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and Truth Initiative on anti-tobacco research and interventions. Balaban has also worked with Carl Latkin, PhD, and the Lighthouse to develop social media content and messaging to support the B-SAFE project, a Baltimore-based initiative that trains people who use drugs to be peer educators.

Balaban recently spoke with HBS Stories about blending her passions for public health and visual design, finding community amidst uncertainty, and learning to be a conscious creator.

What sparked your interest in public health?

I’ve always been interested in art – crafting, doodling, making things; I’ve also always been fundamentally passionate about the sciences, especially public health.

As time went on, I realized more and more that there was a lot of overlap between the arts and the sciences. When I came across health communication, I found it was the perfect embodiment of my interests. As a graphic design minor, I took quite a few graphic design classes and found that a lot of the projects we were doing could be applied to health contexts. For my major, I took public health classes like health promotion and found I would be using skills that I learned in the graphic design classes. My full-fledged passion for health communication evolved from there.

What inspired you to pursue your master’s degree at JHSPH?

During my senior year, I had the best capstone advisor, who made us aware of some of the great programs that were in our area, including those at JHSPH. At the time, I knew that I wanted to continue studying. My mom is a professor. I have a bunch of professors in my family. I knew I wanted to continue along on my educational journey. Hopkins seemed so perfect – not only the program, but being in Baltimore. I had been to Baltimore once, and my takeaway had been just wanting to see more of it. It all fit together in this really great way.

What have you appreciated most about the MHS in Social Factors in Health program and community?

Being in the MHS program, particularly focusing on the social factors in health, has given me a fresh perspective. When I came out of undergrad, I hadn’t thought as much about qualitative data. Having someone like Dr. Jill Owczarzak as my program director and professor has been amazing. I’ve gotten to take some very cool classes and have built a new perspective on ethnographic research, all while discussing the social determinants of health and all the pieces of health outcomes that aren’t necessarily quantifiable.

Also, everyone is so wonderful in our MHS program cohort. Everyone is so kind and so smart and so approachable. It’s been such a silver lining to the pandemic to have our cohort. We have a group message, and when it was warmer, we were doing Saturdays in Patterson Park. The cohort has brought a feeling of community to a new place.

What has surprised you most about your experience as a master’s student with HBS and JHSPH?

I was happily surprised by how much the professors and faculty want to set you up for what you want to do after you finish your program. For example, I originally started working for the Lighthouse and the B-SAFE project because Lauren Dayton and Dr. Latkin reached out to meet with me after they saw my profile in the HBS welcome booklet. They asked what I saw myself doing after the program and said they were going to help me get there over the next two years. They have absolutely upheld that pledge since then.

Tell us more about some of the day-to-day work that you do for B-SAFE and the Lighthouse.

I check in on our B-SAFE social media accounts, which includes our Instagram and Facebook pages. I create and manage our Instagram content. That involves posting the Baltimore City Health Department’s testing schedule every Monday, alongside a caption we’ve structured to convey a certain amount of information. In the middle of the week, we’ll usually post a graphic that’s based off what’s most engaging to our audiences at that time.

What have you enjoyed most about collaborating with the Lighthouse?

On a personal level, I love that I feel like I’m always meeting new people who work for the Lighthouse. There’s a lot of supportive feedback. A lot of the faculty and researchers teach classes, which is great.

It’s also been really, really rewarding to create community resources to the point where we’re beginning to establish ourselves within the Baltimore community as a place where people can go if they have questions about overdose policy and response and COVID-19 prevention. I actually had someone reach out through Instagram one time to say, ‘I didn’t know where I could get Narcan, and now I do. I just wanted to say thank you.’ That was incredible because that’s exactly what we want. We can see a tangible impact we’re having in the community, and at the same time, it’s been fun because I love creating graphics.

You contribute to a number of other research projects in addition to your work with the Lighthouse and B-SAFE. Would you talk about the projects and your role within them? What is it like to balance so many projects at once?

I’m also a research assistant for Dr. Meghan Moran. She has two anti-tobacco projects that I work on. I was taking her Introduction to Persuasive Communications class my first term. We were responsible for creating some health communication materials to encourage social distancing at work between colleagues. I had created some promotional materials for a presentation, and following the presentation, she reached out about a research assistant position.

The first project I’m working on with Dr. Moran is focused on greenwashing tobacco ads. We’re studying the effects of terms like ‘nature’ and the use of plants and how that affects people’s decision to perceive tobacco products as ‘healthy.’

The other project is about building an interactive, online toolkit to disseminate information that different entities, including JHSPH, Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, Truth Initiative, and others, have found around the tobacco industry’s targeted marketing to Latinx youth.

To take on three research projects, I’ve moved around my classes considerably. I have blocked out each research project like a class, and that’s been really helpful in structuring my day-to-day schedule.

What have you learned from your involvement with such a breadth of projects?

The work has definitely informed my health communication knowledge and strategy. I think that the way that communication is transmitted is rapidly changing in terms of what’s effective and what’s not. I’ve learned a lot about communicating to audiences that may have access to technology, as well as those who may not. With our B-SAFE texting campaign, we’re also creating materials to reach people regardless of education or literacy level. I think learning to be a conscious creator has been the best lesson.

This interview has been edited and compressed. The views expressed are the subject's own.