Renata Schiavo, PhD, MA is Founding President and CEO, Health Equity Initiative, a NY-based nonprofit organization dedicated to building community, capacity and communication resources for health equity. Dr. Schiavo is a public health, health communication, and global health specialist with 20+ years of experience in a variety of settings, including the United States, and several countries in Europe, Latin America and Africa. She also holds adjunct academic appointments at the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College, and New York University, where she is on the faculty of the MPH program. Her courses have been focusing on a variety of topics including global health, health communication theory and practice, cross-cultural health communication, and research and evaluation. Renata is the author of a critically acclaimed book on Health Communication: From Theory to Practice (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2007) and other publications in the public health field. She is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Health, Media, and Policy at Hunter College; a member of the board of directors of Solving Kids' Cancer; and, a member of the Steering Committee of the American Public Health Association (APHA) PHEHP Health Communication Working Group (HCWG). She serves on the advisory board of The Nation's Health (the APHA's official newspaper) as well as the editorial boards of Cases in Public Health Communication and Marketing and Journal of Communication in Healthcare.
Dr. Schiavo has recognized public health, health communication, and global health expertise in 20+ public health and/or disease areas and has served on scientific, expert, and review panels, and advisory boards for leading organizations, including the World Health Organization, the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH), and the American Public Health Association. Her recent work has focused on promoting health equity among vulnerable and underserved populations, child and adolescent health, infant mortality prevention and preconception health, malaria, pediatric cancer, training paradigms for health communication in urban settings, global handwashing, and pandemic flu. Prior to founding the Health Equity Initiative, Dr. Schiavo had the pleasure of serving as Associate Professor and Director, Community Health/COMHE at the CUNY School of Public Health at Hunter College; Founder and Principal, Strategic Communication Resources; Executive Vice President for Cooney Waters Group; and Head, Corporate and Marketing Communication and Social Responsibility Programs, Rhodia Farma-Brazil, among past senior positions. Her consulting experience extends to include leading organizations such as National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (NAPNAP); National Malaria Program of the Ministry of Health of Angola; New York University College of Dentistry; Solving Kids' Cancer; World Bank; World Health Organization (WHO); UNICEF; and the U.S. DHHS Office of Minority Health Resource Center (OMHRC). Her training and capacity building experience include 70+ organizations/institutions in the public health/global health fields.
Formerly, Renata was a post-doctoral research scientist at Columbia University and New York University, where she worked on several molecular and cell biology projects in the areas of cancer and cystic fibrosis research.
Dr. Schiavo is an active member of the American Public Health Association (APHA). She was elected to serve on the APHA Governing Council (2007-2009) - the APHA's governing body - as a voting member and representative of the APHA Public Health Education and Health Promotion (PHEHP) section. She was also the 2007-2008 Chair of the APHA PHEHP Health Communication Working Group (a group of 300+ members and 20-30 active volunteers). She is a member of the Italian group SaCS (Salute-Cura-Societa' - Health-Cure-Society), which includes leading Italian sociologists, academics, and other professionals whose work focuses on the social aspects of disease prevention and health communication and promotion. Renata has also contributed with articles and opinions to the Communication Initiative (CI) and is a member of the COMBI (Communication for Behavioral Impact) Global Technical Network (GTN), which is maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Renata holds a PhD in Biological sciences from the University of Naples (Italy) and a M.A. in Journalism and Mass Communication from New York University.
