Jessie Gruman is the founder and president of the Center for the Advancement of Health, an independent, nonpartisan Washington-based policy institute funded by the Annenberg Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and other foundations.
Since it was established in 1992, the Center has worked to create an America where everyone is prepared to live a healthy life and make effective choices about their health care. Increasing the quality and years of healthy life and eliminating health disparities is only possible if people have the knowledge, confidence and skills to make informed decisions and interact productively with health care providers.
Dr. Gruman has worked on this same set of concerns in the private sector (AT&T), the public sector (National Institutes of Health) and the voluntary health sector (American Cancer Society). She holds a BA from Vassar College and a PhD in social Psychology from Columbia University. She is a Professorial Lecturer in the School of Public Health and Health Services at The George Washington University and serves on the boards of trustees of the Center for Medical Technology Policy, the Advisory Panel on Medicare Education of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Public Health Institute.
Dr. Gruman was honored by Research!America for her leadership in advocacy for health research and received honorary doctorates in public policy from Carnegie Mellon University and public service from Northeastern University and Salve Regina University and the Presidential Medal of The George Washington University. She is a member of the Society for Behavioral Medicine, the Association for Psychological Science and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Dr. Gruman is the author of Behavior Matters (Health Behavior Media 2008) and AfterShock: What to do When the Doctor Gives You – or Someone You Love – a Devastating Diagnosis (Walker Publishing, 2007) a book about how people use scientific information to make decisions about their healthcare as well as scientific papers and opinion essays and articles published in the national media.