Who We Are

Leadership

Noel T. Brewer, PhD is Distinguished Professor of Health Behavior at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public. He studies how people make risky health decisions. His current work focuses on increasing HPV vaccination, communicating the harms of smoking, and encouraging appropriate use of screening.

Melissa B. Gilkey, PhD is Associate Professor of Health Behavior at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. With research interests in adolescent health, cancer prevention, and health services research, Dr. Gilkey studies interpersonal and organizational approaches to improving the delivery of HPV vaccine.

Research contributors

Jennifer Heisler-MacKinnon, MPH is a project manager at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health with a focus on health communications and cancer prevention and control.

Katie Kritikos, MPH is a project manager at the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center with a focus on patient-provider communications and adolescent health.

William Calo, PhD, JD, MPH  is Associate Professor of Health Services and Behavioral Research at the Penn State Cancer Institute. He examines how to adapt, implement, and evaluate evidence-based interventions to improve cancer prevention and control among diverse populations.

Brigid Grabert, PhD, JD is Assistant Professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Dr. Grabert’s work focuses on health services research, econometric methods, and the prevention of sexually transmitted infections.

Adam Bjork, PhD is an Epidemiologist in the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Bjork’s work focuses on infectious disease control and prevention.

Practice contributors

The HPV IQ materials and methods were tested in the field with the invaluable help of seven different state health departments.  These practice teams used the HPV IQ tools in primary care practices.  They made sure that the tools were practical, useful, and easy to navigate.  They also provided critical feedback to the research team so that the materials and information on this website could be fine-tuned to meet your needs.

Special thanks to:

• The Arizona Department of Health Services
• The Illinois Department of Public Health
• The Michigan Department of Community Health
• The New York State Department of Health
• The North Carolina Division of Public Health
• The Washington State Department of Health
• The Wisconsin Department of Health Services

Past advisors

We also received support for previous versions of our work from these partners:

• Lori Quick, Nurse Consultant and AFIX Coordinator at the Colorado Department of Public Health
• Karen Fernandez, AFIX City Research Scientist at the New York City Health Department
• Ron Balajadia, Immunization Branch Chief at the Hawaii Department of Public Health
• Alex Thornton, AFIX coordinator at the Ohio Department of Public Health
• Chris Finley, Immunization Program Manager at the Vermont Department of Public Health

Our funders

We would like to give special thanks to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for funding this website and the Assessment and Feedback Tools research.

Thanks also to the Public Health System and Services Research Center at the University of Kentucky for supporting our research and this website and to Pfizer Pharmaceuticals for providing an unrestricted educational grant to fund the Communication Training Tools research.

Disclosures

Dr. Noel Brewer has received grants from and/or served on paid advisory boards for Pfizer, Merck, GSK, FDA, CDC, and NIH.  All other developers have no conflicts to disclose.