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Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion (2004)

Chapter: Appendix D: Committee and Staff Biographies

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Committee and Staff Biographies." Institute of Medicine. 2004. Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10883.
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D
Committee and Staff Biographies

David A. Kindig, M.D., Ph.D. (Chair), is Emeritus Professor of Population Health Sciences and Emeritus Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is also Co-director of the Wisconsin Public Health and Health Policy Institute. He served as Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1980–1985), Director of Montefiore Hospital and Medical Center (1976–1980), Deputy Director of the Bureau of Health Manpower, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (1976), and medical director of the National Health Service Corps (1971–1973). He served as Chair of the federal Council of Graduate Medical Education (1995–1997), President of the Association for Health Services Research (1997–1998), ProPAC Commissioner (1991–1994) and Senior Advisor to Donna Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services (1993–1995). In 1996 he was elected to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Kindig received a B.A. from Carleton College and M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago School of Medicine. His research interests include population health status, supply and distribution of health professionals, equity in health services, and physician and nurse executives. His current work derives from his 1997 book “Purchasing Population Health: Paying for Results.”

Dyanne D. Affonso, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N., is Dean of the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto. She is a leading educator who has advocated for curricula reforms in the health sciences to produce culturally competent health professionals. She is a researcher in women’s health is-

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Committee and Staff Biographies." Institute of Medicine. 2004. Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10883.
×

sues, community-based interventions, and reducing health disparities through studies on testing community prenatal care programs for ethnically diverse women, post-partum depression screening among culturally diverse women, and school-based violence prevention program for ethnically diverse children. She designed several DHSS-HRSA special projects to customize health-care services to immigrant and low-income families across the United States. She has participated in several National Institutes of Health (NIH) initiatives and review groups addressing the health needs of culturally diverse populations, specifically the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI’s) Special Population Networks and NCMH’s Centers for Reducing Health Disparities. A member of the IOM since 1994, she received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Arizona, a master’s degree in nursing from the University of Washington, and a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Hawaii.

Eric H. Chudler, Ph.D., is a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. His current research interests include how Parkinson’s disease affects the brain, how the brain processes pain signals, and how the nervous system reacts to nerve injury. Dr. Chudler creates neuroscience curricula, and provides information to teachers and students (grades K-12) who want to learn more about the nervous system. He also created the Neuroscience for Kids website, funded by the NIH. Dr. Chudler received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington, and received his post-doctoral training from the NIH. He was also an Instructor in the Department of Neurosurgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Marilyn H. Gaston, M.D., is a past Assistant Surgeon General of the United States and Director of the Bureau of Primary Health Care of the Health Resources and Services Administration. Her career has focused on improving the health of poor and minority families through the delivery of quality primary patient care through the provision of medical education, involvement in clinical research, and the administration of local and federal programs directed to services to the underserved. Dr. Gaston is internationally recognized for her leadership in sickle cell disease. Through her work at the NIH, changes in management of children with this illness have resulted significantly in decreasing the morbidity and mortality in young children. Elected to the IOM in 1996, she frequently speaks on improving access to quality care, elimination of health disparities, African-American women’s health, sickle cell disease, and the health needs of youths.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Committee and Staff Biographies." Institute of Medicine. 2004. Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10883.
×

Cathy D. Meade, Ph.D., R.N., F.A.A.N., is Professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Oncology, Division of Cancer Prevention and Control at the University of South Florida College of Medicine, and Director of the Education Program at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute. She also holds a joint appointment in the College of Nursing. She was one of the first investigators to conduct studies in the area of patient understanding identifying the mismatches between patients’ reading levels and the reading levels of health information. She has extensive experience in the development of relevant cancer communications and has produced numerous printed and electronic materials and media for lay and professional audiences. Practical aspects of this work have been published widely to help professionals develop easy-to-understand educational materials and interventions. Her research interests center on crafting culturally, linguistically, and literacy-appropriate health communications, creating sustained community-based cancer education, outreach, and screening initiatives for underserved priority populations, examining understanding of the clinical trial and informed consent process, and developing innovative cancer education and training programs to increase the number of researchers from underrepresented groups. Dr. Meade has served as a member on NCI’s work groups on Cancer and Literacy, and Informed Consent in Cancer Clinical Trials for increasing awareness of the impact of literacy in health care. Dr. Meade also provides leadership for numerous education and training initiatives that address the nexus of cancer, culture, and literacy.

Ruth Parker, M.D., is Associate Professor of Medicine, and Associate Director of Faculty Development for the Division of General Medicine at the Emory University School of Medicine. Her primary research interests are in medical education and health services of underserved populations. Dr. Parker has focused extensively on the health-care issues of underserved populations, particularly health literacy. She was principal investigator in the Robert Wood Johnson Literacy in Health Study, and worked with collaborators to develop the Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults (TOFHLA), a measurement tool to quantify patients’ ability to read and understand health information. She is widely published in health literacy, and co-edited the complete bibliography of medicine on health literacy for the National Library of Medicine. She is chair of the American Medical Association (AMA) Foundation steering committee for the national program on health literacy, a member of the ACP Foundation Health Communication Intiative Committee, and former chair of the AMA expert panel for the Council of Scientific Affairs.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Committee and Staff Biographies." Institute of Medicine. 2004. Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10883.
×

Victoria Purcell-Gates, Ph.D., is a Professor of Literacy and Teacher Education at Michigan State University, where she teaches courses in literacy teaching and research. A former middle and high school teacher, Purcell-Gates had directed literacy centers for children needing help with reading and writing at both the University of Cincinnati and Harvard University. She studies literacy acquisition and development in the context of families, communities, and schools. As part of this, she studies the influence of culture, class, gender, and SES on literacy development and on access to literacy learning in schools. She has just concluded a longitudinal experimental study of text genre instruction in second- and third-grade science classes, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and IERI. Her latest book (Print Literacy Development), to be issued by Harvard University Press in 2004, is based on a multiyear study of relationships between adult literacy instructional factors and change in home literacy practices, sponsored by the National Center for the Study of Adult Literacy and Learning. Her teaching experience has been primarily with children and adults who have experienced difficulty learning to read and write in school.

Irving Rootman, Ph.D., is Professor and Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Distinguished Scholar in the Faculty of Human and Social Development at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada, and was Professor of Public Health Sciences and Director of the Centre for Health Promotion at the University of Toronto. He was Director of the Health and Welfare Canada Program Resources Division and Chief of Health Promotion Studies in the Health Promotion Directorate, and Chief of Epidemiological and Social Research in the Non-Medical Use of Drugs Directorate. He has acted as Senior Scientist, consultant, and technical advisor for the World Health Organization (WHO), and chaired the WHO-EURO Working Group on Health Promotion Evaluation. He has published widely in the field of health promotion, and co-authored a book entitled People-Centred Health Promotion. Dr. Rootman serves on the Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Board of the IOM and is a former member of the Canadian Minister of Health’s Science Advisory Board.

Rima Rudd, Sc.D., is Senior Lecturer on Society, Human Development, and Health at the Harvard University School of Public Health. She is a public health educator and her work centers on health communication and on the design and evaluation of public health community-based programs. She teaches graduate courses on health literacy, innovative strategies in health education, and program planning and evaluation. Dr. Rudd’s current research is focused on health disparities and on literacy-related barriers to health programs, services, and care. She works closely with the adult education, public health, and medical sectors. She is a research fellow of the

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Committee and Staff Biographies." Institute of Medicine. 2004. Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10883.
×

National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy and is Principal Investigator (PI) for the Health and Adult Literacy studies. Dr. Rudd also serves as PI for the Literacy in Arthritis Management: A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Novel Patient Education Intervention with the RB Brigham Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Diseases Clinical Research Center and a co-PI on Pathways Linking Education to Health Study with colleagues at the Harvard School of Public Health. She worked with Drs. Kirsch and Yamamoto of the Educational Testing Services (ETS) to develop a Health Activities and Literacy Scale that provides baseline data for health literacy assessment and discussed in a forthcoming ETS policy report. Dr. Rudd authored the action plan for the health literacy objective in Health People 2010.

Susan C. Scrimshaw, Ph.D., is Dean of the School of Public Health and Professor of Community Health Sciences and Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Scrimshaw has worked widely with diverse populations in cross-cultural settings in the fields of medical and applied anthropology, demography, culture change, and population health. An involved IOM Member, Dr. Scrimshaw has served on the IOM Board on International Health and the IOM Panel on Cancer Research among Minorities and the Medically Underserved. She is Member of the Task Forces on Community Preventive Services and on Violence Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Member of the Executive Council of the Illinois Department of Public Health. Dr. Scrimshaw has worked extensively with city, state, governmental, national, and United Nations agencies. She has been honored by the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology with the Margaret Mead Award for outstanding achievement in bringing anthropology to a wider audience.

William Smith, Ed.D., is Executive Vice President and Senior Social Scientist of Development Program Services at the Academy of Educational Development (AED). Dr. Smith supervises programs of communication and marketing for social change, and serves as senior scientist for the development of behavior change programs at AED, publishing and speaking to policy-making audiences around the world. He often acts as consultant to international organizations including UNICEF and WHO, as well as national departments of health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Smith is recognized as one of the leading specialists in the application of social marketing to social change, and he is co-founder of the Institute for Social Marketing. He has designed, supervised, and evaluated social marketing and communication campaigns on HIV/AIDS prevention in 22 countries, and infant and maternal health in 35 countries of the world.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Committee and Staff Biographies." Institute of Medicine. 2004. Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10883.
×

IOM Staff

Lynn T. Nielsen-Bohlman, Ph.D., is a Senior Program Officer in the Board on Neuroscience and Behavioral Health. Dr. Nielsen-Bohlman’s research focused on human distributed cortical networks in working memory and attention, and their modulation by arousal, aging, cortical and subcortical degeneration, and cortical lesion. Her studies on the differential involvement of anterior and posterior cortices in working memory provided the first evidence of a distributed working memory network in humans. Dr. Nielsen-Bohlman received her Ph.D. in physiology from the University of California at Davis in 1994. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of California, San Francisco, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University, and a Psychology Department faculty member at Belmont University and the University of Maryland University College. She is the Study Director for the Committee on Health Literacy, and has worked in science and education outreach for two decades.

Allison M. Panzer is a Research Assistant in the Board on Neuroscience and Behavioral Health, and has worked on studies of the pathophysiology and prevention of adolescent and adult suicide and how to optimize the public health response to long-term and short-term mental health consequences of terrorism. This work has contributed to two IOM reports: Reducing Suicide: A National Imperative and Preparing for the Psychological Consequences of Terrorism: A Public Health Strategy. Allison received her Bachelor’s Degree from Wesleyan University with coursework in psychology, sociology, and neuroscience, and has pursued postgraduate studies while at the National Academies.

Benjamin N. Hamlin, Research Assistant at IOM, received his bachelors in Biology from the College of Wooster in 1993 and a degree in health sciences from the University of Akron in 1996. He joined the National Academies in 2000 as a Research Assistant for the Division on Earth and Life Studies. His work at IOM has included Testosterone and Aging: Clinical Research Directions; Review of NASA’s Longitudinal Study of Astronaut Health; Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion; Improving Medical Education: Enhancing the Behavioral and Social Science Content in Medical School Curricula; and NIH Extramural Center Programs: Criteria for Initiation and Evaluation.

Allison L. Berger is a Project Assistant in the Board on Neuroscience and Behavioral Health. She is currently working on two IOM studies: Health Literacy and Introducing Behavioral and Social Sciences into Medical

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Committee and Staff Biographies." Institute of Medicine. 2004. Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10883.
×

School Curricula. Before joining the IOM staff, she enjoyed a 5-year tenure as an Administrative Assistant for the American Psychological Association (APA) where she assisted the APA Committee on Psychological Test and Assessment, Committee on Scientific Awards, and the Committee on Animal Research and Ethics. She also worked on several funding and grant programs sponsored by the APA Science Directorate.

Andrew M. Pope, Ph.D., is Director of the Board on Neuroscience and Behavioral Health, and Director of the Board on Health Sciences Policy at IOM. With a Ph.D. in physiology and biochemistry, his primary interests focus on environmental and occupational influences on human health. Dr. Pope’s previous research activities focused on the neuroendocrine and reproductive effects of various environmental substances in food-producing animals. During his tenure at the National Academy of Sciences and since 1989 at IOM, Dr. Pope has directed numerous studies; topics include injury control, disability prevention, biologic markers, neurotoxicology, indoor allergens, and the enhancement of environmental and occupational health content in medical and nursing school curricula. Most recently, Dr. Pope directed studies on NIH priority-setting processes, organ procurement and transplantation policy, and the role of science and technology in countering terrorism.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Committee and Staff Biographies." Institute of Medicine. 2004. Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10883.
×

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Committee and Staff Biographies." Institute of Medicine. 2004. Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10883.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Committee and Staff Biographies." Institute of Medicine. 2004. Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10883.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Committee and Staff Biographies." Institute of Medicine. 2004. Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10883.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Committee and Staff Biographies." Institute of Medicine. 2004. Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10883.
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Committee and Staff Biographies." Institute of Medicine. 2004. Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10883.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Committee and Staff Biographies." Institute of Medicine. 2004. Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10883.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Committee and Staff Biographies." Institute of Medicine. 2004. Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10883.
×
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Suggested Citation:"Appendix D: Committee and Staff Biographies." Institute of Medicine. 2004. Health Literacy: A Prescription to End Confusion. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/10883.
×
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To maintain their own health and the health of their families and communities, consumers rely heavily on the health information that is available to them. This information is at the core of the partnerships that patients and their families forge with today’s complex modern health systems. This information may be provided in a variety of forms – ranging from a discussion between a patient and a health care provider to a health promotion advertisement, a consent form, or one of many other forms of health communication common in our society. Yet millions of Americans cannot understand or act upon this information. To address this problem, the field of health literacy brings together research and practice from diverse fields including education, health services, and social and cultural sciences, and the many organizations whose actions can improve or impede health literacy.

Health Literacy: Prescription to End Confusion examines the body of knowledge that applies to the field of health literacy, and recommends actions to promote a health literate society. By examining the extent of limited health literacy and the ways to improve it, we can improve the health of individuals and populations.

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