Biography

Claudia Parvanta, PhD, joined USF as Professor, College of Public Health, and Director of the Florida Prevention Research Center, in 2017. As an anthropologist working in social marketing, she examines how culture affects health behavior as well as culturally appropriate ways to promote interventions. She recently completed a study for the Florida Department of Health examining how individuals respond to anti-smoking public service announcements using facial expression analysis—a neuromarketing tool among several she is testing through her collaboration with the Muma College of Business Center for Sales and Marketing Innovation. Dr. Parvanta is using this and Community Based Prevention Marketing to help develop and test messaging about COVID-19 for vulnerable populations across the US as part of the National Coronavirus Resilience Network, led by the Morehouse School of Medicine and funded by the Office of Minority Health. With the team at the FPRC, she is disseminating results from the Center’s previous project funded by CDC promoting colorectal cancer screening to underserved populations. She recently began an assignment for the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to assist the Center in COVID-related communications for the workplace.

Before joining USF, (2005-17) Dr. Parvanta was the Chair of the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia. From 2000 to 2005, Dr. Parvanta headed the Division of Health Communication at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and helped the agency expand its emergency communication capacity to respond to the 9/11 attacks, anthrax, and SARS. When not in government or academia, Dr. Parvanta has designed, managed, or evaluated programs, or offered capacity-building training in more than 25 countries. Her early days were spent working with the Los Angeles Public Health Foundation WIC program as their ‘consulting anthropologist’ and with Porter/Novelli, a leading social marketing company.  

Dr. Parvanta has received grants from the CDC, the Office of Minority Health, the Florida and Pennsylvania Departments of Health, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, among others. Her publications appear in peer-reviewed journals, and she is the lead author on three APHA endorsed textbooks in health communication.