COVID-19 Data & Communications, featuring State Epidemiologist & UMass Health Communications Expert 

Join us Friday December 18, 2020 from 11:00-12:00 pm for a discussion with experts from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst on COVID-19 data and effective health communication for prevention. Dr. Catherine Brown, State Epidemiologist for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health (MDPH), will discuss the COVID-19 data being collected by MDPH and what has been learned. This will be followed by a discussion with Dr. Devon Greyson, Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, about what we know about effective health communication for COVID-19 and some local efforts they are involved in. The webinar will be moderated by Dr. Kathleen Szegda, Director of Community Research and Evaluation.

Bios

Dr. Catherine Brown is the State Epidemiologist and State Public Health Veterinarian at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health; she has been with the Department since 2006.  As the State Epidemiologist, she is responsible for ensuring surveillance for over 90 reportable infectious diseases as well as overseeing surveillance data analysis and dissemination. As a veterinarian, she is most deeply involved with the reportable zoonotic and vector-borne diseases. She is currently serving as the Infectious Disease Committee Chair for the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. Dr. Brown is very proud of a 2013 Commonwealth of Massachusetts Workforce Mentoring award.

Dr. Devon Greyson is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Devon studies what people do with information and when this matters to health and social equity. Dr. Greyson’s current work explores the ways people and health systems negotiate contested knowledge around topics such as vaccines and cannabis use, and how information could be used more effectively to promote the health of populations.

Dr. Kathleen Szegda is an epidemiologist and the Director of Community Research and Evaluation at the Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts.  She has over 20 years of public health/research experience working at the national, state and local level including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She and her team created the Western MA County COVID-19 Data Dashboard as part of their ongoing efforts to make data available and accessible so that it can be used to inform decision-making.