Shonna Yin, MD

H. Shonna Yin, MD, MSc, is a general pediatrician and an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Population Health at the NYU School of Medicine / Bellevue Hospital Center. She is an NIH-funded researcher whose work centers on the issue of health literacy and its implications for child health. A large focus of her work involves examining the intersection between health literacy and medication safety, including the development and evaluation of low literacy strategies to improve parent understanding of medication instructions. Dr. Yin is Principal Investigator of a multi-site NIH/NICHD-funded R01 to develop and evaluate a low literacy medication labeling and dosing strategy for pediatric prescription liquid medications. Some of her work in medication safety is featured in the Joint Commission book "Addressing Patients' Health Literacy Needs." Dr. Yin is a key member of the CDC's PROTECT (Prevention of Overdoses and Treatment Errors in Children Taskforce) initiative, and served as co-chair of the subcommittee focused on the standardization of pediatric medication dosing instructions. She also serves as a consultant to the FDA's Risk Communication Advisory Committee. Other areas of research focus include examining low literacy strategies to address obesity prevention as well as chronic disease management (e.g. asthma). Dr. Yin serves as co-Principal Investigator of a multi-site NIH/NICHD-funded R01 to develop and test a low literacy and numeracy-focused intervention for early childhood obesity prevention (Greenlight). She is also working on a CTSI-funded project to improve health provider and parent management of child asthma through a health literacy, information technology-based approach. Dr. Yin has provided health literacy expertise to many groups, including the CDC, FDA, IOM, and AAP. She was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Physician Faculty Scholar (2009-2012), and recipient of the Pfizer Fellowship in Health Literacy / Clear Health Communication (2007-2009).