Associate Director for Behavioral Science
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases
1600 Clifton Rd. MS-C12
Atlanta,
GA
USA
30329-4027
cprue@cdc.gov
Biographical Sketch:
Dr. Christine Prue is the Associate Director for Behavioral Science at the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She works to apply and advance the science of health behavior and health communication to prevent and control infectious diseases. Since 2008 she has led communication response efforts to numerous foodborne outbreaks, conducted research to develop messages promoting consumer food safety behaviors, guided communication of new scientific findings, led efforts to engage public health, industry, and consumer advocacy partners on a number of issues including Lyme Disease, vaccine safety, and One Health (the notion the people, animals and the environment are interconnected for disease and health). She is the co-developer of CDC’s Clear Communication Index, a research-based tool to plan and assess communication products.
In the late 1980’s, Chris began her career in public health working on the frontlines at state and local health departments in Maine. She joined CDC in 1996 in CDC's Office of Communication, where she assisted programs across CDC with health communication planning, implementation, and evaluation activities. In 2002, she joined the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD) as a senior behavioral scientist who developed, implemented, and evaluated interventions to prevent serious birth defects. In 2006, she became the chief of the Prevention Research Branch which focused on the primary prevention of fetal alcohol syndrome and folic acid-preventable neural tube defects as well as early identification of autism. In 2008, she started working with CDC’s infectious disease programs. Chris has been deployed to India and Indonesia to address large-scale refusal of polio vaccine. Her efforts led to substantial increases in polio vaccination rates.
Most recently she has led evaluation of various aspects of CDC's response efforts to the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak.