Teaching Research About Me Service

Research Interests


My research focuses on consumer well-being, vulnerability, emotions, and perceptions, particularly in service contexts. I aim to produce work with both managerial relevance and public policy impact, employing lab and field experiments, survey research, and quantitative analysis. I also have a growing interest in content analysis of large-scale online data, including social media and corporate communications.

My work spans two primary streams:

  1. Perceived Healthcare Access and Consumer Vulnerability
    I examine how consumers’ subjective perceptions of access to healthcare influence their vulnerability, behaviors, and health outcomes. This research was published in the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing and the Journal of Consumer Affairs. It addresses topics like systemic distrust, pandemic response, and health motivation. Ongoing projects explore the implications of U.S. reproductive health laws on consumer well-being and perceived access.
  2. Anthropomorphism in Consumer Experience
    My second stream explores how anthropomorphism shapes consumer responses across contexts. In one project, I investigate how anthropomorphic and emotionally framed messages in sustainable tourism communications influence behavioral intentions through goal congruence and brand connectedness. In another, I explore how the perceived gender of AI assistants affects consumer perceptions and interactions, contributing to our understanding of humanizing technology in everyday life.

Ultimately, my goal is to deepen our understanding of how consumers’ perceptions and emotional responses shape their experiences, behaviors, and well-being. As digital and service landscapes evolve, I’m excited to expand this work through interdisciplinary collaboration and innovative data approaches.


Publications


Consumer-Level Perceived Access to Health Services and Its Effects on Vulnerability and Health Outcomes
 Journal of Public Policy & Marketing 39 (2), 240-255 Access to health services affects the well-being of millions of consumers. Although the topic of health-related access is regularly featured in popular and academic conversations, these conversations primarily concentrate on objective or situational access factors. This research focuses instead on consumers’ subjective perception of access to better appreciate how personally experienced service availability and ease of access jointly determine consumers’ access perceptions. The authors find that perceived access to health services (PAHS) offers insight into the relationships between access, perceived health vulnerability, and overall health. Through scale development and a series of three theory-testing studies, this work demonstrates the close link between PAHS and perceived vulnerability (Study 1), connects this relationship to overall health (Studies 1–3), and establishes behavioral changes associated with access-vulnerability concerns (Study 2). Moreover, Study 3 finds evidence for a “muting” effect of health system distrust on the relationship between PAHS and perceived vulnerability as well as an “amplifying” effect of health motivation on the relationship between perceived vulnerability and overall health. Together, these studies illustrate PAHS’s relevance for explaining consumer vulnerability and overall health.
Perceived access, fear, and preventative behavior: Key relationships for positive outcomes during the COVID‐19 health crisis
 Journal of Consumer Affairs 56 (1), 141-157 The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic reduced real and perceived access to healthcare services, exacerbating pandemic fear, and thus influencing consumers' adoption of preventative health behaviors. Extending the EHBM, results from two studies show that perceived access to health services and pandemic fear impact an individual's general and COVID-preventative health behaviors. High perceived access reduces pandemic fear through its buffering effects on perceived health vulnerability and pandemic-related health system concern, especially with telehealth usage during the pandemic. While pandemic fear motivates COVID-19 vaccination, pandemic fear reduces personal preventative health behavior (e.g., healthy eating, exercising) and has little effect on personal COVID-preventative behaviors (e.g., wearing a mask, social distancing) when individuals perceive high pandemic-related control. Moreover, the fear-behavior link does not hold for preventative health visits; instead, perceived access directly promotes preventative visits and screening. This research informs public health stakeholders' communication, education, and resource allocation during health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Research in Progress

Kizilova, Elvira, and Tanner, Emily C., "Impact of Reproductive Health Legislation on Women’s Perceived Access to Health Services" (Study 1 data analysis in progress).

Kizilova, Elvira, and Michael F. Walsh, “Critters and Creatures: Exploring the Role of Anthropomorphic Cues in Sustainable Tourism Messaging,” target: Journal of Public Policy and Marketing (Study 2 analysis in progress).

Kizilova, Elvira, “"The Impact of Gender Perceptions on Consumer Attitudes Toward ChatGPT: Exploring Reliability, Comprehensiveness, and Creativity" ” (conceptual development).