Center for Health Literacy Announces New Director

Dr. Aldoory

The Herschel S. Horowitz Center for Health Literacy has appointed Dr. Linda Aldoory as the Center’s new director.

Dr. Aldoory has been a part of the University of Maryland, College Park community for 12 years. Effective July 1, her new faculty appointment will be as an Associate Professor in the Department of Behavioral and Community Health in the School of Public Health. Currently, she is an Associate Professor within the Department of Communication and an Affiliate Faculty Member of the Department of Women’s Studies.

Dr. Aldoory was the Founding Director of the Center for Risk Communication within the Department of Communication. Her general research area is health communications with a focus on audiences of public health campaigns and health media. She received a Ph.D. from Syracuse University where she conducted research in media campaigns and women’s health. Dr. Aldoory’s professional area of expertise is in public relations focused on health issues, and prior to joining Maryland’s faculty, she spent years creating health messages and developing comprehensive campaigns for health clients and non-profit organizations.

For several years, Dr. Aldoory has been a consultant for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Prior to this new appointment, Dr. Aldoory has had a significant relationship with students and faculty from the School of Public Health. In her health communication courses, she has had the opportunity to work with School of Public Health graduate students. She is currently collaborating with School of Public Health faculty to study health messaging for rural families and how to connect health literacy to the empowerment of rural mothers.

The Horowitz Center for Health literacy was established in 2007 to address the major public health problem of poor health literacy and its effect on health outcomes. Its first Director, Dr. Bonnie Braun, has worked tirelessly to bring the center to where it is today. It is the nation's first academic based health literacy center and is devoted to improving health through the lifespan with emphasis on closing the health disparities gap. Improving health literacy is one pathway to reducing health disparities. To learn more about the center, visit http://sph.umd.edu/literacy/.