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The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement: Workshop Summary (2015)

Chapter: Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches

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Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18946.
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Appendix C


Speaker Biographical Sketches
1

Reneé Canady, Ph.D., M.P.A., is the chief executive officer of the Michigan Public Health Institute and was formerly the health officer and director of the Ingham County Health Department, overseeing all public health operations and nine community health centers. Previously she was deputy health officer of the department, overseeing public health nursing, family and outreach services, disease control, health equity and social justice, planning and health assessment, neighborhood engagement, environmental health, and emergency preparedness. Dr. Canady has researched, published, and presented on pregnancy experience and disparities, health risks in pregnancy, infant mortality, HIV/AIDS, and racial health disparities. She has given television and radio interviews on these and other public health topics, including sexually transmitted diseases and teen pregnancy. Earlier in her career she was a health education coordinator for the Michigan Department of Corrections, where she developed and implemented the first HIV/AIDS education and prevention program for Michigan prisons. She also worked for the Ingham County Health Department, where she was the first AIDS educator and the adolescent health coordinator. In the latter role, she developed and coordinated programs to reduce rates of adolescent pregnancy, and she implemented adolescent health care services and prevention programs. Dr. Canady has lent her expertise to several community and state groups tasked with improving

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1 Notes: Names appear in alphabetical order; “*” = member of the IOM Roundtable on Population Health Improvement; “” = member of the workshop planning committee.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18946.
×

public health. These include the Michigan Department of Community Health’s infant mortality steering committee and public health code advisory committee; the Healthy! Capital Counties steering committee; the Ingham Change Initiative; the Ingham County Infant Mortality Coalition; and the boards of directors of the Great Lakes Health Information Exchange, the Capital Area United Way, and the Capital Area Health Alliance. In addition to teaching for the Program in Public Health, she is a former researcher and assistant professor at the Michigan State University College of Nursing.

George R. Flores, M.D., M.P.H.,* is a program manager for The California Endowment’s Healthy California Prevention team. His work focuses on grant making to improve health and equity through community-based prevention and creating a healthy workforce. His work aims to strengthen the public health system, primary care, and community outreach along with cross-sector collaboration to address the social and environmental factors that shape health outcomes. Dr. Flores previously managed grant making to develop models of health-supportive policies and community environments, including Healthy Eating Active Communities and the Central California Regional Obesity Prevention Program, two nationally prominent multisite, multisector programs to prevent childhood obesity which provided key lessons for the development of the endowment’s Building Healthy Communities strategy. Previously, Dr. Flores served as public health officer in San Diego and Sonoma Counties; clinical assistant professor for the University of California, San Francisco, family practice residency program; the director of Project HOPE in Guatemala; and a deputy health officer in Santa Barbara County. Dr. Flores received his M.D. from the University of Utah and his M.P.H. from Harvard University. He is an alumnus of the Kennedy School of Government’s executive program and the National Public Health Leadership Institute. He was a member of two Institute of Medicine (IOM) committees that published the milestone reports Preventing Childhood Obesity: Health in the Balance and The Future of the Public’s Health in the 21st Century. He is currently a member of the IOM Roundtable on Population Health Improvement. Dr. Flores is a founder of the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California. Over his career Dr. Flores has been a resource to government and nongovernmental organizations. He has authored numerous presentations and reports for diverse audiences on topics including obesity and chronic disease prevention, community health, immigrant health, health disparities, and environmental policy. Dr. Flores’ work has been published in the Journal of the American Public Health Association, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, and Preventing Chronic Disease, among others. He co-authored a book chapter, “Latino Children’s Health and the Environment,” in At Risk!: Latino

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18946.
×

Children’s Health, recently published by Arte Publico Press. Dr. Flores was recognized by the National Hispanic Medical Association as 2011 Physician of the Year for his work addressing social and environmental inequities and the role of communities in advancing policy and systems change to improve health. His vision is for every community to be a healthy, safe, and supportive place to raise children, go to school, work, and play.

Mary Lou Goeke, M.S.W.,* has held the position of executive director of United Way of Santa Cruz County since 1992. She is responsible for the overall management and administration for the organization, including strategic planning, new program development, financial oversight, and liaison with community agencies funded by United Way as well as the business community and government partners. She founded and staffs the Community Assessment Project, the internationally recognized, second-oldest community progress report in the United States. From 1981 to 1992 she held positions of increasing responsibility with Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, the San Francisco Bay Area’s largest private human services and community development agency. Initially hired as director of aging services in the San Francisco County branch agency, she then became director of parish and community services, and then executive director. She then held the position of general director and chief executive officer of the three county agencies in San Francisco, Marin, and San Mateo counties. In addition, as general director she held two other related positions, archdiocesan director of Catholic Relief Services and archdiocesan director of the Campaign for Human Development. Prior to working for Catholic Charities, she served from 1979 to 1981 with the American Society for Aging as policy and legislation coordinator. Before that, she worked from 1975 to 1979 for the State of Missouri Department of Aging, starting as a field representative and being promoted to the position of director of planning, research, and evaluation.

Marqueece Harris-Dawson has been a leader in the South Los Angeles community for more than 20 years, leading important social justice campaigns aimed at improving the quality of life for all African-American and Latino residents in the community. As president and chief executive officer of Community Coalition, Harris-Dawson has been deeply involved and committed to the organization’s mission, working arduously to improve the social and economic conditions in South Los Angeles that lead to crime, violence, substance abuse and poverty. Harris-Dawson came to the helm of Community Coalition in 2004 following years as a community organizer, leader, and director, leading some of the organization’s first major education justice victories. Founded in 1990 by now-

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18946.
×

Congresswoman Karen Bass and a group of activists, the Community Coalition is best known for leading nationally recognized grassroots campaigns that include groundbreaking nuisance-abatement work to close more than 150 liquor stores as well as educational justice campaigns to transform the quality of public education. In the 1990s Harris-Dawson served as the director of the Community Coalition youth project, South Central Youth Empowered Through Action, leading the Proposition Better Buildings campaign to expose the poor conditions at South Los Angeles high schools. Arming youth with disposable cameras to document the poor conditions of their schools and training them to advocate for badly needed repairs at their campuses, Harris-Dawson helped students win $153 million in school repairs in 1999. Recently, Harris-Dawson led the concerted efforts of the African American Redistricting Collaborative to ensure that African Americans had a voice in the California redistricting process. In addition to his work at the Community Coalition, Harris-Dawson has extensive experience in electoral politics and is a key participant in the progressive movement in Los Angeles. During his time completing a bachelor’s degree at Morehouse College, Harris-Dawson became active with several important social justice issues of the time, including organizing in the international movement to end South African apartheid, fighting against police brutality, and working to bring more youth and family services to those who needed them the most. Along with a host of board and committee posts, Harris-Dawson has been recognized with several community commendations, recognitions, and awards, including the coveted Do Something “BRICK” Award and Liberty Hill Foundation’s Upton Sinclair Award. Harris-Dawson was recently honored with The California Wellness Foundation Sabbatical Program Award. He holds a certificate in nonprofit management from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and is a currently an Aspen Institute Fellow for New Leaders.

Phyllis Hill is the lead organizer for ISAIAH and works in Minneapolis, organizing more than 20 congregations. As the staff lead on ISAIAH’s education and mass incarceration work, she is currently building a school discipline/suspensions campaign that emphasizes the cradle-to-prison pipeline. Ms. Hill has led a groundbreaking grassroots movement to increase funding in education, which includes preventing the cutting of integration money. Also, she has accomplished extraordinary work in interracial dialogs within the faith community. Ms. Hill studied history at Georgia Southern University and received a M.A. in African-American studies from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Prior to her time at ISAIAH, Ms. Hill worked at Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin, as the Ronald E. McNair Coordinator, a federally funded program that assisted

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18946.
×

students who were low-income, first-generation, and persons of color to pursue graduate school education.

Kymberly Lacrosse has been a community organizer at the United Way of Santa Cruz County for more than 7 years and is currently the project director of Jóvenes SANOS, a youth leadership and advocacy group. Ms. Lacrosse has a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and an M.A. from San Jose State University, both in sociology. In addition, Ms. Lacrosse is engaged in ongoing transformative leadership for sustainable change, which strives to design community change that makes a real, lasting, and sustainable difference. She has more than 25 years of partnering with youth in many capacities, giving her frontline experience that intertwines synergistically with her academic and intellectual knowledge. Ms. Lacrosse brings a heartfelt passion to youth voice and community engagement that is rooted in an undeniable commitment to see individuals and communities be inspired, educated, and successful. Her commitment to equity, justice, access, and health drive her to work diligently to change the systems in place for a more equitable, thriving, and healthy world.

Karen Marshall is the executive director of Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools (Rethink), a youth organizing and youth leadership development organization that uses participatory education and action research to build the leadership skills of youth in New Orleans. Ms. Marshall made the move to New Orleans from Boston, Massachusetts, where she gained experience in clinical therapy, community organizing, youth work, higher education, parent organizing, and education justice initiatives. Additionally, she has taught undergrad and graduate programs in Trinidad and South Africa.

Kate Hess Pace is a lead organizer for the PICO Center for Health Organizing. She led the Healthy Corridor for All Coalition’s Health Impact Assessment, a joint effort of ISAIAH, TakeAction Minnesota, and PolicyLink on the Central Corridor Light Rail Line. As an organizer, she led ISAIAH’s work on financial justice and spearheaded the campaign to win landmark foreclosure legislation in Minnesota. Ms. Hess Pace is completing a master’s degree in public administration at Cornell University with an emphasis on health equity and urban policy. She received her B.A. at Indiana University, an individualized major on public space and urban studies. Prior to moving to Minnesota, she led a number of community projects, including founding a program for at-risk youth and leading a community-run newspaper.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18946.
×

Manuel Pastor, Ph.D., is a professor of sociology and American studies and ethnicity at the University of Southern California (USC), where he also serves as the director of USC’s Program for Environmental and Regional Equity and the co-director of USC’s Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration. He is also the founding director of the Center for Justice, Tolerance, and Community at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Pastor holds an economics Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and has received fellowships from the Danforth, Guggenheim, and Kellogg foundations and grants from the Irvine Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the California Environmental Protection Agency, the California Wellness Foundation, and many others. In recent years his research has focused on the economic, environmental, and social conditions facing low-income urban communities in the United States, which has resulted in articles published in Economic Development Quarterly, Review of Regional Studies, Social Science Quarterly, Journal of Economic Issues, Journal of Urban Affairs, Urban Affairs Review, Urban Geography, and elsewhere. He has also conducted research on Latin American economic conditions, with articles published in journals such as International Organization, World Development, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Latin American Studies, Latin American Research Review, and Foreign Affairs. His most recent book is Just Growth: Inclusion and Prosperity in America’s Metropolitan Regions (Routledge Press, 2012), which was co-authored with Chris Benner. Previous volumes include Uncommon Common Ground: Race and America’s Future (W.W. Norton, 2010; co-authored with Angela Glover Blackwell and Stewart Kwoh), This Could Be the Start of Something Big: How Social Movements for Regional Equity Are Transforming Metropolitan America (Cornell University Press, 2009; co-authored with Chris Benner and Martha Matsuoka), Staircases or Treadmills: Labor Market Intermediaries and Economic Opportunity in a Changing Economy (Russell Sage, 2007; coauthored with Chris Benner and Laura Leete), Searching for the Uncommon Common Ground: New Dimensions on Race in America (W.W. Norton, 2002; co-authored with Angela Glover Blackwell and Stewart Kwoh), and Regions That Work: How Cities and Suburbs Can Grow Together (University of Minnesota Press, 2000; co-authored with Peter Dreier, Eugene Grigsby, and Marta Lopez-Garza), a book that has become a standard reference for those looking to link neighborhoods and regions. Dr. Pastor speaks frequently on issues of demographic change, economic inequality, and community empowerment and has contributed opinion pieces to such outlets as the Los Angeles Times, the San Jose Mercury News, the Los Angeles Business Journal, and the Christian Science Monitor. In January 2002 he was awarded a Civic Entrepreneur of the Year award from the California Center for Regional Leadership, and in 2012 he received the Wally Marks

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18946.
×

Changemaker of the Year award from the Liberty Hill Foundation. He is a member of the Building Resilient Regions research network sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation.

Melissa A. Simon, M.D., M.P.H., is the vice chair of clinical research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, preventive medicine, and medical social sciences at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Simon’s primary research interests are aimed at eliminating health disparities for low-income, medically underserved women across the lifespan. Integrating health services research with social epidemiologic models, Dr. Simon’s research focuses on interventions (such as patient navigation and community health outreach workers) that aim to reduce and eliminate such disparities. Within this context, Dr. Simon prefers to leverage culture and community to achieve these goals and thereby integrates a community-based participatory research framework into her work.

Jose Joel Vasquez is a 20-year-old resident of Watsonville, California, a small agricultural town in Santa Cruz County. Mr. Vasquez has been a member of Jóvenes SANOS for more than 4 years. Jovenes SANOS has become a second family to Mr. Vasquez and is the place where he found his voice and has become a leader to his peers, family, and community. Mr. Vasquez is attending his local community college and plans to transfer to California State University–Monterey Bay to study sociology with an emphasis on criminal justice and also a minor in music.

Jomella Watson-Thompson, Ph.D., M.A., M.U.P., is an assistant professor of applied behavioral science and the associate director of the Work Group for Community Health and Development at the University of Kansas (KU) College in the Liberal Arts and Sciences. Dr. Watson-Thompson’s research experience has focused on the application of behavioral science methods and interventions to improve how communities address issues related to community health and development. She is particularly interested in a behavioral community psychology approach to social problem solving. Her research team, the KU Work Group Team for Community Youth Development and Prevention, conducts research in affiliation with the Work Group for Community Health and Development and the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies. Her particular interests include neighborhood development, positive youth development, and prevention, including prevention of substance abuse and violence prevention. Dr. Watson-Thompson supports community-based participatory research and evaluation activities with community organizations to

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18946.
×

examine the effects of community-based prevention efforts in addressing youth violence and adolescent substance use. Her team is also initiating a line of research examining if youth engagement in preferred leisure-time physical activities may serve as a reinforcer and protective factor for pro-social behaviors. Dr. Watson-Thompson also conducts research to support community capacity-building efforts aimed at addressing social determinants of health through community-based participatory research in urban neighborhoods and disparate communities. A guiding theme for her research has been the empirical and experimental analysis of the effects of community-based processes and intervention to promote community mobilization and change in addressing the interrelated conditions that affect community health. She also has researched the effects of community-based processes and interventions (e.g., strategic planning) to examine organizational behavior and functioning of community-based organizations and coalitions. Specifically, she is interested in examining factors that enable communities, particularly those in urban environments, to effectively bring about change and improvement in community-identified outcomes of concern (e.g., homicides, graduation rates, and community participation).

Julie Willems Van Dijk, Ph.D., RN, is an associate scientist and the co-director for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation–funded County Health Rankings & Roadmaps project at the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. Dr. Willems Van Dijk also serves as the director of the RWJF Roadmaps to Health Prize. She has worked with numerous partners across the nation to use the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps tools to take action to improve the health of communities. Her research interests are focused in the area of the quality of community health improvement planning processes. Prior to joining the Population Health Institute, Dr. Willems Van Dijk worked in local public health for 21 years as a public health nurse, director of nursing, and a health officer. Dr. Willems Van Dijk has served on numerous community boards, including the Aspirus Wausau Hospital Board of Directors, the Wausau School District Board of Education, the Wausau Child Care Board of Directors, the Marathon County United Way’s Local Initiatives for Excellence committee, and the Wausau/Marathon County Chamber of Commerce Leadership Wausau program. Dr. Willems Van Dijk received a doctorate degree in nursing with an emphasis in public health leadership from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. She also holds an M.S.N. from the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh and a B.S.N. from the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. She is a graduate of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nurse Executive Fellows program and the National Public Health Leadership Institute.

Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18946.
×
Page 65
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18946.
×
Page 66
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18946.
×
Page 67
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18946.
×
Page 68
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18946.
×
Page 69
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18946.
×
Page 70
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18946.
×
Page 71
Suggested Citation:"Appendix C: Speaker Biographical Sketches." Institute of Medicine. 2015. The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement: Workshop Summary. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18946.
×
Page 72
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The Role and Potential of Communities in Population Health Improvement is the summary of a workshop held by the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Population Health Improvement in April 2014 that featured invited speakers from community groups that have taken steps to improve the health of their communities. Speakers from communities across the United States discussed the potential roles of communities for improving population health. The workshop focused on youth organizing, community organizing or other types of community participation, and partnerships between community and institutional actors. This report explores the roles and potential of the community as leaders, partners, and facilitators in transforming the social and environmental conditions that shape health and well-being at the local level.

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