Health Communication Strategies and Skills for a New Era First Edition Claudia Parvanta

Claudia Parvanta, PhD, holds the position of Professor in the Department of Community and Family Health, College of Public Health, and serves as the Director of the Florida Prevention Research Center at the University of South Florida, Tampa, commencing from January 2017. Between July 2005 and December 2016, she led the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia where her research focused on health literacy and culturally competent health communication. From 2000 to 2005, Dr. Parvanta led the Department of Health Communication at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She played a pivotal role in the agency’s communication strategies during events such as the 9/11 attacks, anthrax scares, and SARS outbreaks. Prior to her tenure in government and academia, Dr. Parvanta was employed at Porter Novelli, a global social issues communication firm. Dr. Parvanta has devised, overseen, or evaluated health and nutrition social marketing programs across more than 20 countries. She was honored with the 2016 Public Health Education and Health Promotion Division of APHA’s Distinguished Career Award.

Dr. Sarah Bauerle Bassis, an Associate Professor at the College of Public Health at Temple University, also heads the Risk Communication Laboratory at Temple. Her research is dedicated to health and risk communication and the crafting of public health messages for diverse audiences to enhance decision-making. She has pioneered the field of health communication by applying commercial marketing techniques to the creation and testing of messages or interventions. Through perceptual mapping and vector modeling approaches, Dr. Bass has demonstrated how 3-D imaging can enhance message development and tailor it to address specific behavioral or attitudinal obstacles, applying the findings to interventions leveraging mHealth, the Internet, and Web 2.0 applications. Dr. Bass is also utilizing psycho-marketing methods to evaluate emotional and physiological responses to and processing of health messages through visual, graphic, Internet, or textual message elements using eye-tracking, pupilometry, EKG, and skin conductance measures. She currently serves as the co-Principal Investigator for a study aiming to develop a tailored mobile application decision support tool for African American cancer patients on clinical trial participation, and as Principal Investigator for two grants assessing barriers to HCV treatment initiation in active and recovering drug users. Other research includes perceptions on smallpox vaccination, HIV+ patient attitudes towards clinical research, and HIV care providers’ perspectives of their patients, among others. Dr. Bass has been honored with the prestigious Great Teacher award (2012), the highest teaching accolade at Temple University, as well as the Lindback award for excellence in teaching (2007), and the Excellence in Teaching award (2006) from the College.