Jessie Gruman
Jessie Gruman is the founder and president of the Center for Advancing Health (CFAH), 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's efforts have been aimed at increasing patient engagement, in the belief that people will not benefit from the health care available to them unless they participate fully and competently in it. Dr. Gruman draws on her own experience of treatment for three cancer diagnoses, surveys, peer-reviewed research and interviews with patients and caregivers as the basis of her work to describe – and advocate policies and practices to overcome – the challenges people face in finding and using safe, decent health care.
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 and is a Professorial Lecturer in the School of Public Health and Health Services at The George Washington University. She is the co-editor of the Journal of Participatory Medicine and serves on the board of trustees of the Center for Medical Technology Policy, the Advisory Panel on Medicare Education of DHHS, the board of Center for Information Therapy and the Technical Board of the Milbank Memorial Fund.
Dr. Gruman was honored by Research!America for her leadership in advocacy for health research and received honorary doctorates from Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, Georgetown University, New York University, Northeastern University, Salve Regina University and Tulane 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 The Experience of the American Patient: Risk, Trust and Choice (Health Behavior Media, 2009); 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), as well as scientific papers and opinion essays and articles published in the national media.
For further biographical information, see Who's Who in America (60th Edition).
Jessie Gruman's Books
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