Chris Norwood

Chris Norwood, is a prize-winning author and healthcare advocate, was one of the first journalists to sound an alarm about HIV/AIDS in the early 1980s before it was widely recognized as a deadly epidemic. Norwood broke the story in Ms. Magazine that women with AIDS were routinely undercounted with their deaths attributed to other causes. She also authored the first book on women and HIV, “Advice for Life: A Woman’s Guide to AIDS.” That book, which came out in 1987, became the inspiration for her founding Health People (then known as Health Force) in 1990 as a women’s prevention and support program.

A pioneer in using peer education to enable communities to take control of their health, Chris has been recognized nationally and internationally for her work in HIV/AIDS and peer-delivered health education. In 2005, Chris was one of 1,000 women nominated worldwide for a special Nobel Peace Prize for women’s work in community health.

She is a member of the Community Coordinating Council for the Bronx Center to Reduce and Eliminate Ethnic and Racial Health Disparities (Bronx CREED), an NIH-funded Center of Excellence at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine; the Bronx-Einstein Alliance for Tobacco-Free Health (Bronx BREATHES); the Community Advisory Board of Albert Einstein College of Medicine AIDS Research Center; and the Chronic Disease Prevention Group of the NY State Health Department Prevention Agenda Committee. She is also a past member of the Board of Directors of the Public Health Association of New York City.

Chris has contributed extensively to research on community health issues. She is a graduate of Wellesley College.

See LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-norwood-b0a2316/