About - Health Comm Central

karen-hilyard-health-comm-central-founder

About Karen M. Hilyard, Ph.D.

Founder of Health Comm Central

I officially describe myself as a behavioral scientist and longtime communication professional who fell in love with public health work 15 years ago.
The complete story is a little more complicated.
Former Emmy-winning news producer. Public relations and marketing executive. Trained facilitator. Public health contractor. Health comm professor. Behavior change communication scholar. I’ve worn all the hats in the communication field, for organizations both large and small.

After beginning my public health career in 2006 working on pandemic preparedness,

my work in crisis & emergency risk communication eventually morphed into research on vaccination behavior and racial health disparities. I’ve gone on to work on practically every health condition or behavior you can name, from emergency risk communication to vaccination to sexual health to diabetes prevention to childhood obesity and much more. Since 2009, a key focus has been communication related to health equity, social determinants of health, and the policies and systems behind them.

Our CDC courses are offered through our partnership with Creative Thinkers, LLC, a woman-owned, veteran-owned company with a long track record serving federal agencies and contractors. Feel free to initiate your training request through us or through them.

Combining this wide-range of experience navigating different issues, challenges, and cultures with my strong foundation in behavioral science gives me knowledge and practical expertise no other trainer can match. I not only understand your challenges, I speak your language, which means every training course we deliver is relevant, practical, fresh, and worth the time and money invested. It’s why my professional training courses have been sought-after by federal, state, and local public health agencies since I began offering them 7 years ago, in partnership with my colleagues at Creative Thinkers, LLC.

When COVID-19 hit in 2020, I used my past experience as a distance learning pioneer in higher ed to become one of the first CDC trainers to pivot to fully-remote live training. What followed was an explosion in demand, enabling us to bring live, interactive learning to the desks of public health practitioners, scientists, and healthcare providers scattered all around the world.

Learning, collaborating, problem-solving, innovating, generating ideas, and creating content – to me, these are some of the most energizing things in the world, and I work to infuse them into every course I teach. The power of online teaching means I can bring that to more organizations than ever before. With real-time offerings that rival or exceed the quality of any in-person training, Health Comm Central is committed to our continued focus on virtual courses even after COVID-19 is a distant memory.

If you’d like to discuss how I can deliver customized health communication training to your team, reach out to schedule a 20-minute phone consultation.

Wondering what the options look like? Contact us to take a spin with a free sample course.

Alumni of my courses qualify for exclusive free membership in the Health Comm Central Community of Practice, a private LinkedIn group for leading health communication professionals.