This is the fourth installment of our Teaching Public Health series, which began in 2018. For this year’s symposium, our focus is on Writing and Communication, recognizing how central communication is to effective public health. This has been more evident than ever in the time of COVID. Yet, there has not been focused attention on effective public health communication in formal or informal curricula in programs and schools of public health. The symposium will explore promising practices in teaching public health writing and communication, highlighting lessons learned from the past two years as public health communication has been highly scrutinized, and looking toward a future where all public health professionals are well trained for effective communication.
Speakers
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@jenbeard7
Jennifer Beard
Clinical Associate Professor, Boston University School of Public Health (SPH '06)
@jenbeard7
Jennifer Beard
Clinical Associate Professor, Boston University School of Public Health (SPH '06)
Jennifer Beard, PhD, MA, MPH, is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Global Health at Boston University School of Public Health, the Associate Editor of Public Health Post, and an Assistant Director for Narrative in the Center for Antiracist Research. She developed and leads the BUSPH Public Health Writing Program and also directs the MPH Global Health Certificate. She created and teaches courses in global mental health, global health storytelling, and public health writing. Dr. Beard founded the BU Program for Global Health Storytelling – a collaboration between BUSPH, the BU College of Communication, and the Pulitzer Center – which analyzes the similarities and tensions between global health research and journalism and seeks ways to improve collaboration.Dr. Beard’s scholarship explores the intersection between population health, the arts and humanities, and journalism; and the health and well-being of key populations at high risk for HIV and trauma including sex workers, drug users, orphans, and other highly vulnerable children. From 2010-2014, she was the principal investigator for the multi-study Ghana Operations Research for Key Populations project. The 9 qualitative studies (done in collaboration with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, the Ghana AIDS Commission, and USAID) identified the HIV prevention and harm reduction needs of young female sex workers and their boyfriends, prisoners, men who have sex with men, post-secondary female students, women who work in bars, people who inject drugs, and people living with HIV at risk of dropping out of antiretroviral therapy. She has also worked in India, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, Ukraine, and Zambia.
Dr. Beard started her academic life in the humanities, completing her BA in English literature at Youngstown State University, her MA at Ohio University with a focus on Victorian literature, and her PhD at the University of New Hampshire specializing in twentieth-century British women writers. She remains a devoted reader of novels and believes that her global health teaching and research interests are rooted in her passion for Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters, and Barbara Pym.
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@RAKaczmarcik
Rose Anna Kaczmarcik
Vice President, Social Impact at Syneos Health (SPH '08)
Rose Anna Kaczmarcik (MPH) is Vice President of Social Impact at Syneos Health company. She has more than 14 years of experience in health communications with a focus in environmental, social and governance (ESG). Rose Anna is passionate about working with diverse partners at the intersection of planet and public health.She has worked with partners across the public, private and non-profit sectors to develop events and campaigns that educate and drive health action among consumers as well as health decision makers. She has advised pharmaceutical and consumer goods companies on ESG strategy and related communications.
Rose Anna has a BS in Chemistry and a minor in Health Care Ethics from Saint Joseph’s University. She received her MPH with a concentration in International Health from Boston University. RoseAnna was a founding steering committee member of the Public Health Young Leader Association (PHYLA) in Philadelphia, has served on the Food and Nutrition section of the American Public Health Association and the Philadelphia alumni board for Boston University School of Public Health.
She resides outside Boston with her husband and two sons.
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@CommunicateHlth
Ashley King
Health Communication Manager, CommunicateHealth (SPH '16)
Ashley King is a Health Communication Manager at CommunicateHealth. She earned her BS in Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and MPH at Boston University School of Public Health. With experience that spans across university, non-profit, community, and local government health programming and research, Ashley brings a unique perspective and expertise to the field. She is passionate about starting new and meaningful conversations about health, using her extensive background in adolescent health research, health communication, and health promotion. And she is committed to addressing health disparities by incorporating a social justice framework and always thinking of creative ways to better serve our end user. -
@uwsph
Sara Mackenzie
Professor Emeritus, University of Washington School of Public Health
Dr. Sara Mackenzie is a family physician, public health practitioner, curriculum developer, author, and teaching professor (emeritus). She is also a conservationist, mother, sister, daughter, wife, equestrian and dog-lover. Her career has included practicing as a family physician, teaching in residency programs & undergraduate public health, serving as an Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Education, founding the University of Washington Public Health-Global Health degree programs, and co-authoring a personal and public health textbook. The Covid-19 pandemic prompted her to fulfill a long-standing goal. She retired from higher education and established a public health consulting business. Her work now primarily involves supporting a federal vocational training program for low socioeconomic youth.Whether documenting clinical care, developing curricula, analyzing data, promoting health, or developing policy, different writing genres have played an active role in her daily work. She strongly believes that writing is a critical skill set for public health professionals and that intentional integration of writing into and across programs is essential for building equitable curricula that provide students with the skills they need to be successful. In developing the University of Washington Public Health-Global Health majors, she integrated a “writing across the curriculum” model. This means that faculty intentionally scaffold student experiences with public health reading and writing across the required sequential core courses. Given the positionality of writing in society, and the fact that diverse students bring a wide range of reading and writing experiences to training programs, she believes a structured approach enhances the student learning experience and enhances equity in our training programs.
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@xlnan
Xiaoli Nan
Professor, University of Maryland-College Park
Dr. Xiaoli Nan is a Distinguished Scholar-Teacher and Professor of Communication at the University of Maryland-College Park. Dr. Nan is the Director of the University of Maryland’s Center for Health and Risk Communication and has been a senior editor for the journal Health Communication since 2018. Dr. Nan served as chair of the Health Communication Division of the National Communication Association from 2018-2019. Dr. Nan’s research focuses on health and risk communication, particularly the design of persuasive health messages and the role of emerging media in public health promotion. Dr. Nan’s recent work has addressed COVID-19 public health communication, health misinformation, and the impact of morality on health beliefs and behaviors. Dr. Nan has published in leading journals in Communication, Public Health, and Marketing, with over 100 journal articles and chapters in edited volumes. Dr. Nan has received more than $7.5 million in research grants as PI or Co-PI from federal funding sources such as the National Cancer Institute and the Food and Drug Administration. In 2020, Dr. Nan was named the Lewis Donohew Outstanding Health Communication Scholar at the Kentucky Conference on Health Communication. -
@vishplus
Kasisomayajula Viswanath
Professor, Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health
Dr. K. “Vish” Viswanath is Lee Kum Kee Professor of Health Communication in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) and in the McGraw-Patterson Center for Population Sciences at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI). He is also the Faculty Director of the Health Communication Core of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC). Other additional administrative and scientific leadership positions held by Dr. Viswanath include: Director of the Center for Translational Communication Science, DFCI/Harvard Chan; Director, Harvard Chan, India Research Center and Co-Director, Lee Kum Sheung Center for Health and Happiness, Harvard Chan. He is the founding Director of DF/HCC’s Enhancing Communications for Health Outcomes (ECHO) Laboratory.Dr. Viswanath’s work, drawing from literatures in communication science, social epidemiology, and social and health behavior sciences, focuses on translational communication science to influence public health policy and practice. His primary research is in documenting the relationship between communication inequalities, poverty and health disparities, and knowledge translation to address health disparities. He has written more than 250 journal articles and book chapters concerning communication inequalities and health disparities, knowledge translation, public health communication campaigns, e-health and digital divide, public health preparedness and the delivery of health communication interventions to underserved populations. He is the Co-Editor of four books and monographs: Mass Media, Social Control and Social Change (Iowa State University Press, 1999), Health Behavior and Health Education: Theory, Research & Practice, 5th Ed. (Jossey Bass, 2015), The Role of Media in Promoting and Reducing Tobacco Use (National Cancer Institute, 2008) and A Socioecological Approach to Addressing Tobacco-Related Health Disparities (National Cancer Institute, 2017). He was also the Editor of the Social and Behavioral Research section of the 12-volume International Encyclopedia of Communication (Blackwell Publishing, 2008).
He has served and continuing to serve on several national committees including for the US Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine.
In recognition of his academic and professional achievements, Dr. Viswanath received several awards including the Postdoctoral Mentor of the Year Award from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Joseph W. Cullen Memorial Award For Excellence in Tobacco Research, American Society for Preventive Oncology, the Dale Brashers Distinguished Mentorship Award, National Communication Association, Outstanding Health Communication Scholar Award jointly given out by the International Communication Association and the National Communication Association and the Mayhew Derryberry Award from the American Public Health Association (APHA) for his contribution to health education research and theory and the CLA Alumnus of Notable Achievement, University of Minnesota. He delivered the 23rd Annual Aubrey Fisher Lecture at University of Utah in 2009. He was elected Fellow of the International Communication Association (2011), the Society for Behavioral Medicine (2008) and the Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research (2006).
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@BUSPH
Lisa Sullivan
Associate Dean for Education, Boston University School of Public Health (MODERATOR)
@BUSPH
Lisa Sullivan
Associate Dean for Education, Boston University School of Public Health (MODERATOR)
Lisa Sullivan is the Associate Dean for Education at the School of Public Health. She has a PhD in Statistics and is Professor of Biostatistics and former Chair of the Department of Biostatistics. She teaches Biostatistics and Quantitative Methods for Public Health and was instrumental in developing a minor program in public health which is open to undergraduate students at Boston University. She served as Principal Investigator of the Summer Institute for Training in Biostatistics from 2003-2015, which was designed to promote interest in the field of biostatistics and its many exciting career opportunities. Lisa is co-author of a textbook entitled Introductory Applied Biostatistics, author of Essentials of Biostatistics in Public Health (currently in its third edition) and Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopedia of Clinical Trials. She is the recipient of numerous teaching awards for excellence in teaching, including the Association for Schools of Public Health/Pfizer Award for Teaching Excellence. Lisa is a senior statistician on the Framingham Heart Study working primarily in developing and disseminating cardiovascular risk functions. She has expertise in multidisciplinary research projects including a variety of projects in cardiovascular disease, a large epidemiological study to assess the association between alcohol exposure in pregnancy and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), studies to improve methods for prenatal diagnosis and a clinical trial to improve repetitive behaviors in children affected with autism.
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