Health Literacy Center Grows Partnership with Harvard Expert

Last week, our Herschel S. Horowitz Health Literacy Center encountered a milestone since its formation with a visit from Harvard Health Literacy expert, Dr. Rima Rudd. The program, which included a workshop and individual meetings with students and faculty to discuss research, was a historic marker in advancing the agenda of the Health Literacy Center.

“We sought Dr. Rudd because of her reputation as an early scholar in the field and as an excellent teacher,” the Center's director, Dr. Bonnie Braun Braun said. “Who better to work with our faculty, students and community members?” She added that similar collaborations in the future should result in community-wide improvements of the health literacy environment.

Dr. Rudd is the first visiting senior scholar to the Health Literacy Center, which was established in 2007. The workshop is the start of a mentoring partnership between the two, and future visits will be open to the School and community.

Invited students, faculty and community health directors discussed with Dr. Rudd methods for identifying and removing literacy-related barriers in health systems.

Among her accomplishments, Dr. Rudd is the 2009 recipient of the Pfizer Health Literacy in Advancing Safety Award. Dr. Rudd published her health-literacy checklist in her guidebook, The Health Literacy Environment of Hospitals and Health Centers, co-authored by Jennie E. Anderson. She is a senior lecturer for Society, Human Development and Health at Harvard and serves as the department’s director of educational programs. She serves as researcher and principal investigator for the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy and has also written several reports that have helped shape the agenda in health literacy research and practice. Read more about Dr. Rudd at the UMD-College Park SPH Web site; the Literacy Center site; and the Harvard site. You can also check out her own reference page.

The Herschel S. Horowitz Health Literacy Center is the first academic-based center of its kind, and it was established at the School of Public Health to address the effects of poor health literacy on health outcomes. The Center was established with a generous gift from Dr. Alice Horowitz and her family, who is the senior advisor to the dean on health literacy.