My research asks how people decide, and how those decisions shape well-being in health and finances. I bring two decades of industry experience in consumer insight and design to that work, and to how I teach.
Each count is the publications, presentations and projects at that intersection. Select one to see the work.
Health and healthcare demand, athlete concussion disclosure, and financial well-being.
Research → TeachingPathways in social entrepreneurship and consumer analytics, a doctoral seminar, and internships.
Teaching → ServiceEditor-in-Chief of the Journal of Family and Economic Issues, plus roles at BTSI and the Innovation District.
Service →A Georgia CTSA platform that pairs county-level public health data with Community Voice, a structured measure of community priorities, so researchers can find places where their research goals and community needs align.
My research examines the demand that individuals and communities have for health and healthcare, and the factors that raise or lower it. That work grows out of more than a decade of research on athlete health and on financial well-being. Across all three, one finding keeps returning: a person's capacity to decide matters more to their well-being than what they know about a domain.
Select a cell to filter the work below.
Why do some people and communities seek out care, technology and research participation while others hold back?
Building on my MPH training, I study what raises or lowers demand for health and healthcare, from a pregnant woman's acceptance of wearable devices to a county's readiness to partner on research.
What makes a young athlete willing and able to report concussion symptoms?
With NCAA and Department of Defense support, we used social marketing and human-centered design to change how athletes think about reporting, and found that reporting is a skill shaped by parents, coaches and motivation.
How do people decide how they're doing financially, and what helps them do better?
I helped develop the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's approach to measuring financial well-being and have studied financial capability with partners in the U.S. and Australia.
Presentations since 2017. The full list is in the CV.
Funded and applied work that puts the research into practice.
Health data is plentiful, but it is rarely organized to help researchers decide where and with whom to work. The Georgia Health Landscape combines surveillance data from the CDC and the National Cancer Institute, U.S. Census data, health care provider data and UGA Cooperative Extension resources with Community Voice, a structured measure of community priorities drawn from resident surveys and community leadership. Researchers use the county-level view to select study sites, plan recruitment and build partnerships where research goals and community needs align.
Wearable devices could transform care during pregnancy and the postpartum period, but only if women are willing to use them and share what they record. This project explores maternal attitudes toward wearable medical devices and what drives acceptance, building on my MPH project on redefining the pregnancy journey from the woman's perspective.
Part of the NCAA–DoD Mind Matters Research and Education Grand Challenge, this project tested whether social marketing and human-centered design could change the culture of concussion reporting among young athletes. We developed two new interventions, symptom education rewritten in athletes' own language and consequence-based messaging on the costs of not reporting and the benefits of reporting, and tested them against the existing NCAA fact sheet.
Working with the CFPB, I helped define what financial well-being means to consumers and how to measure it, then used the new measure in a national survey of the drivers of financial well-being for working-age Americans, older Americans and veterans. The conceptual work was published in the Journal of Consumer Research.
My courses are studios, not lectures. Students review short lectures and readings before class, and we use class time to do the work together: analyzing data, building and defending arguments, prototyping and pitching, with coaching along the way. Students work in teams on real problems and are graded on mastery, with chances to revise as their skills grow.
Across every course I'm building the same capacity: framing better questions, weighing evidence and turning it into decisions and action. I'm deliberate about AI as well. Students first develop the judgment AI can't replace, and then learn to partner with it.
Students learn the methods, form an evidence-based point of view, carry an idea toward implementation, and finish with a self-directed capstone.
Teams apply human-centered design, strategic storytelling and social impact communication to a challenge of their choosing. Each student also builds a plan for the focus area where they want to make a difference, with feedback from a peer advisory board.
Fall · co-taught with Taitum MaxwellTeams build and defend an evidence-based point of view on three questions: Can we measure well-being? What does it mean to be doing well? What creates well-being? Then they prototype a product, service, program or policy.
Fall · experiential learningAn innovation studio for the space between a promising idea and its implementation. Teams test assumptions, prototype, plan for sustainability, build coalitions and pitch.
What would it take for this idea to actually work?Fall
Students design and lead a self-directed project on a community or social need. They set two milestones, write the rubric for each, and manage their own plan. The result anchors their professional portfolio.
SpringStudents learn a repeatable analytical process, use it to design for people, and then apply it in a professional placement.
A five-step process for turning business questions into evidence and recommendations, practiced on increasingly complex real cases and graded on mastery.
The goal of this course is not to produce better spreadsheets. It is to produce better analysts.Fall
A course in quantitative empathy. Teams use factor and cluster analysis to find meaningful consumer segments and white space, turn the insights into prototypes, and test their concepts.
SpringPlacements focused on applied analytics, where students use data analysis and evidence-based storytelling to inform an organization's decisions.
InternshipStudents lead discussions of theory and research from consumer science, psychology, marketing and sociology, then develop an original research proposal. They test it in a brown-bag presentation and serve as formal discussant on a classmate's proposal.
SummerAs instructor of record for the department's internships, I help undergraduate and graduate students connect what they learn in class to professional practice, in placements across the fields our department serves.
Fall · Spring · SummerDesigned by students for students. Majors complete four core courses, then build expertise in a focus area of their choice from courses across campus. Program page ↗
Students combine analytical data courses with strategic storytelling and choose a third of their curriculum to fit their goals. Program page ↗
Ad hoc reviewer for the Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Business Research, Health Education & Behavior, Health Promotion International, PLOS ONE, Applied Psychology, Frontiers in Psychology, Journal of Financial Therapy and others. Best Reviewer Award, Journal of Consumer Affairs, 2019.
Dee Warmath studies why some people and communities seek out health and healthcare while others hold back, and how to close that gap. She is an Associate Professor of Consumer Economics in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences at the University of Georgia, Director of Communication Strategy for the Biomedical and Translational Sciences Institute, and an inaugural Faculty Innovation Fellow for UGA's Innovation District.
She was part of a team that led the design of the Georgia Health Landscape, a Georgia CTSA platform that pairs public health data with Community Voice, a framework she developed with community engagement colleagues to capture community priorities. Her health research builds on more than a decade of work on athlete health and financial well-being, including work on measuring financial well-being for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Consumer Research, Social Science & Medicine, the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine and The Lancet Regional Health – Americas, with funding from the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the NCAA and Department of Defense. She is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Family and Economic Issues.
She holds a Ph.D. in Consumer Science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, a Master of Public Health from the University of Georgia, and an M.A. in Sociology from Vanderbilt University. Before moving to academia, she spent two decades in senior roles in retail and consumer insights.
The full CV lists publications, grants, presentations, teaching and service.
Last updated October 2026
Department of Financial Planning, Housing and Consumer Economics
College of Family and Consumer Sciences
University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602