Michael Villaire, MSLM

Michael Villaire, MSLM, is Chief Operating Officer for the Institute for Healthcare Advancement, a nonprofit healthcare public charity dedicated to empowering people to better health, with an emphasis on health literacy. Michael produces the Institute for Healthcare Advancement’s annual Health Literacy Conference. He has written numerous articles and lectures nationally on health literacy. He is co-author of the textbook, Health Literacy in Primary Care: A Clinician’s Guide and the easy to read self-help health book, What To Do When Your Child Is Heavy. He is adjunct faculty at Brandman University, where he teaches a health literacy course for the Master of Science in Health Risk and Crisis Communication program.
His background includes 20 years as an editor in healthcare publishing, including peer-reviewed journals in nursing, hospital publications, physician news magazines, and an online healthcare portal experiment. He has helped redesign and launch several medical and nursing journals, and managed the development of a multimedia, interactive curriculum in critical care.
Michael earned his baccalaureate degrees in English and Communications from Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Mich. He earned his Master of Science, Organizational Leadership and Management from the University of La Verne, La Verne, Calif. His thesis examined health literacy in community clinics in regard to adequacy of patient education materials.