Fred Fridinger

Health Communication Specialist, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

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Dr. Fred Fridinger has nearly 30 years of experience in social marketing and health communication, currently as a Health Communication Specialist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and previously as a Social Science Research Analyst with the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), and providing communications contractor support to the National Cancer Institute as a Vice President, Communications Research and Evaluation, for Matthews Media Group, Inc., a strategic health communications research firm in the Washington, D.C., area. He also has held full and part-time academic positions as an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Social and Behavioral Sciences, School of Public Health at the University of North Texas Health Science Center, and at the University of Georgia.

Dr. Fridinger is currently the lead for audience research within the Office of Communication Science (OCS), Office of the Associate Director for Communication (OADC) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As such, he oversees two major market research services contracts for the agency with Nielsen, Inc., and Porter Novelli Public Services, respectively. Dr. Fridinger has also recently been the CDC technical lead/project director of both an opioid anti-stigma campaign with the White House, and a CDC Zika prevention communication effort.

Dr. Fridinger received his Doctorate in Public Health (Dr.P.H.) from the University of South Carolina, his M.S. from Louisiana State University, and his B.S. from Towson State University in the Baltimore, Maryland area, where he is originally from.