AwareGuide - Your Guide to Life Changing Media

Sandra de Castro Buffington is director of Hollywood, Health & Society (HH&S), a program of the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center that leverages the power of the entertainment industry to improve the health and well being of individuals and communities worldwide.  An effective source of accurate health information for the entertainment industry, HH&S has a proven track record of supporting top writers and producers to incorporate critical health issues into TV storylines.  Funded by the CDC, California Endowment, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the program recognizes the profound impact that entertainment media have on individual knowledge and behavior.

Sandra is known for her award-winning work in global health and social transformation. She has nearly 30 years of experience working in global leadership, reproductive health and emergence technologies; 20 years were spent working internationally, and five of those years were spent in residence overseas.

Formerly Vice President of the Centre for Development and Population Activities (CEDPA), Sandra guided the flagship WomenLead program to equip, mobilize and empower women globally and nurtured a network of 5,000 alumni in 140 countries. With USAID, she led the development of a $250 million strategic framework for global health leadership and management and managed a $108 million portfolio of strategic communication programs worldwide.  She coordinated the first international Entertainment for Social Change conference at the USC Annenberg School to leverage the power of the entertainment industry and expertise of reproductive health experts for social transformation worldwide. With the Johns Hopkins University Center for Communication Programs, Sandra launched an award-winning vasectomy promotion campaign in Brazil, earning seven international advertising awards including a Bronze Lion at the Cannes Film Festival and Gold Medal at the London International Advertising Awards.
She was a founding member of Latin America’s leading healthcare Internet company eHealth Latin America, and later led the design for the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization of a web-based portal – The Virtual Campus for Public Health - aimed at strengthening public health stewardship, health sector reform and capacity building in Latin America and Spain.

Sandra has most recently worked with the executive leadership teams of Emergence Sanctuaries, Hearthstone Homes, World Pavilions, and The Arlington Institute focusing on strategies and practices to create business and living environments aimed at global sustainability.

Sandra has received numerous honors and awards including the USAID Maximizing Access and Quality Outstanding Achievement Award for her reproductive health and social change programs, and Brazil’s Award for Leadership in developing the Bahia State Reproductive Health program. She is a former associate faculty member at The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and a past Board member of the Pan American Health and Education Foundation. She is certified as an instructor in Spiral Dynamics Integral Technologies and in the use of Cultural Transformation Tools supporting leaders in building values-driven cultures.

Sandra is Brazilian-American, fluent in English, Portuguese and Spanish, and proficient in French. She has worked and traveled worldwide.