Skip to main content
Faculty

Rudd Health Literacy Fellow, Heather Platter, Successfully Defends Her Dissertation

Back to News
SPH News red placeholder image
Heather Platter, alumna of School of Public Health at the University of Maryland
Dr. Heather Platter

Dr. Heather Platter, the Horowitz Center’s 2018-2019 Rudd Health Literacy Fellow and a Center Research Assistant, successfully defended her dissertation in May 2019. Her dissertation explored health literacy and informed decision-making about lung cancer screening among older adults with long-term smoking, which resulted in a health literacy theoretical model on informed decision-making about lung cancer screening.

Currently, she is a Cancer Prevention Fellow at the National Cancer Institute and focuses on tobacco control and prevention, early detection, and cancer prevention. 

Her research interests include communication in healthcare systems and patient-provider relationships, such as shared decision-making in cancer screening and tobacco use discussions. She is also interested in the influence of affective factors on decision-making, how cancer and tobacco misinformation affect patient health outcomes, and how individuals find, process, evaluate, and respond to cancer risk information. 

 

  • Categories
  • Faculty
  • Departments
  • Horowitz Center for Health Literacy