Laura Koo, a University of Maryland School of Public Health PhD candidate in the Department of Behavioral and Community Health, has been selected as a Rima E. Rudd Fellow. The fellowship will provide up to $30,000 to support Koo’s dissertation research in health literacy.

A new report, “Improving America’s Oral Health Literacy,” published by the Delta Dental Institute and co-authored by Alice Horowitz, a research associate professor in the University of Maryland School of Public Health, calls on the need for health literacy to address oral health in the United States.  

Devlon Jackson, assistant research professor of behavioral and community health at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, received an Investigator Diversity Research Supplement grant to explore how Health Information Technology (HIT) can improve health for African Americans and Hispanics living with mental health issues and chronic diseases.

This story was originally published in Maryland Today on Friday, February 21 and was written by Sala Levin '10.

As the coronavirus outbreak continues to expand around the world, and definitive answers trail behind rising numbers of diagnosed cases, a School of Public Health symposium yesterday sought to shed some light on the emerging disease, its impact and the steps being taken to contain it and ultimately stop it.

The Horowitz Center for Health Literacy welcomes Dr. Daniel Park as our new Post-Doctoral Research Associate. Dr. Park received his doctoral degree this past August in Health Communication from Indiana University. His research interests involve assessing the utility of electronic health and mobile health technologies to promote technology use for those with limited health literacy.

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.

The Department of Health and Human Services wants to hear from you about an updated definition of "health literacy" for Healthy People 2030.

A team of UMD researchers is developing a new mobile app to help people without regular access to health care cut through the thousands of fitness, nutrition, brain health and other offerings by providing a sort of one-stop wellness shop.

Cynthia Baur, the Center for Health Literacy's Director, co-wrote a chapter in the recently published book, Health Literacy: New Directions in Research, Theory and Practice.

During the fall 2014 semester, Diana Wang, Sama El Baz, Megan Keane, and Sarah Younan teamed up in HLTH 371: Communicating Safety and Health to design a health communication campaign for what they thought was just going to be another class project. Based on personal experiences abroad in Thailand, where children living in poverty were required to brush their teeth in school, Ms. El Baz and Ms. Wang suggested they craft their project around oral health.