Dr. Scott C. Ratzan, M.D., M.P.A., M.A., is the founding editor-in-chief of the Journal of Health Communication: International Perspectives.
For nearly four decades, Dr. Ratzan has worked across academia, government, and the private sector to advance health communication and strategic diplomacy. He is recognized as a pioneer in developing the concepts of health and vaccine literacy. In the early 1990s, he established the first joint master’s degree program in health communication in Boston, which became a model for similar programs globally, including the Master’s Program in Health Communication for Social Change at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, where he currently serves as a leader. Following over a decade as a corporate vice president at Johnson & Johnson, he returned to academia in 2018 as a senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School. His recent global health activities include the 2023 establishment of the Council for Quality Health Communication, leading to his appointment as founding co-chair of the Nature Medicine Commission on Quality Health Information for All.
Earlier in his career in Washington, D.C., Dr. Ratzan led the development of a global health communication strategy for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), helping to establish programs in 65 countries. During this time, he co-authored the definition of health literacy adopted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, later incorporated into the language of the Affordable Care Act.
Dr. Ratzan also served as co-chair of the UN Secretary-General’s Innovation Working Group in support of the “Every Woman, Every Child” initiative and on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Board of Scientific Counselors, Office of Infectious Disease. He serves on the Board on Global Health for the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Dr. Ratzan founded the Journal of Health Communication in 1996 and has published articles in the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, JAMA, Nature Medicine, and the National Academies of Medicine Perspectives. His books include Vaccine Communication in a Pandemic (2024), The Mad Cow Crisis: Health and the Public Good (1998), Attaining Global Health: Challenges and Opportunities (2000), AIDS: Effective Health Communication for the 90s (1993), and Tom Bradley: The Impossible Dream (1987).
In addition to his primary appointment at CUNY SPH, Dr. Ratzan holds adjunct professorial positions at Tufts University School of Medicine and the University of St Andrews School of Medicine. He also co-leads communication efforts with the Pandemic Response Institute, an initiative with ICAP at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and CUNY SPH.
Dr. Ratzan earned his M.D. from the University of Southern California, his M.P.A. from Harvard Kennedy School, and his M.A. in Communication from Emerson College.