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APHA announces 2024 awards for excellence in public health

Date: Sep 06 2024

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Media Relations

Every year, the American Public Health Association honors excellence in public health leadership and innovation, from state and local health officials to those speaking up for public health from the halls of Congress.

This year’s awards will be presented Monday, Oct. 28 at 12:30 p.m. during APHA’s 2024 Annual Meeting and Expo, which officially kicks off Oct. 27.

“We’re excited to present these prestigious awards to those working tirelessly to improve public health across the country and around the globe. Their innovation, leadership and advocacy demonstrate a deep commitment to public health and health equity,” said Georges C. Benjamin, MD, executive director of APHA.

This year’s honorees include:

Barbara Cole, RN, MSN, PHN, the director of disease control in the Riverside University Health System-Public Health in California, will receive APHA’s 2024 Sedgwick Memorial Medal for Distinguished Service in Public Health for her leadership, mentorship and advocacy for disease prevention in southern California and beyond. Cole is recognized for her holistic approach to disease control, which not only includes targeted treatment but helping affected communities get the resources they need to financially survive long-term infections, such as tuberculosis. She has also worked on TB infection control in correctional facilities and TB outbreaks on the U.S.-Mexico border as chair of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Council for the Elimination of Tuberculosis.

Linda A. Teplin, PhD, vice chair and Owen L. Coon professor, Department of psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Director, Health Disparities and Public Policy in the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, will receive the 2024 APHA Award for Excellence for her lifelong research on the health and well-being of incarcerated people in the United States. Teplin is recognized for highlighting the long-term negative health impacts of the lack of mental health services for youth in the juvenile justice system. Her work has had national influence on how the legal system should handle defendants with mental health issues, including reforms such as mental health screenings for detained youth and the creation of mental health courts.

Jackson Public Schools in Jackson, Mississippi, will receive the 2024 APHA Presidential Citation for improving education outcomes through community partnerships. The school district, which serves nearly 18,000 students, partnered with several local organizations such as the Boys and Girls Club of Jackson and the Jackson Hinds Comprehensive Health Center to provide social services and health care for school families that promote healthy habits, such as regular exercise and healthy eating. Once considered a failing school district, Jackson Public Schools has improved its performance ratings by three letter grades in six years, according to a statewide accountability system. 

C. William Keck, MD, MPH, FACPM, professor emeritus of Northeast Ohio Medical University’s Department of Family and Community Medicine, will receive the 2024 APHA Executive Director Citation for being APHA’s voice in connecting public health academia and best practices. For 26 years, Keck has represented APHA as the chair of the Council on Linkages Between Academia and Public Health Practice to help educate and train future public health workers. Keck’s own academic teachings and public health work made him invaluable to the future of Ohio’s public health workforce. He was recruited over 40 years ago to connect what was then Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine to the Akron Health Department. Since then, Akron’s health department merged with two other health departments, while four additional Ohio health departments also formed working relationships with the university. Keck is also an APHA past-president and Ohio Public Health Association member, in addition to being a member of the Council on Education for Public Health and an American College of Preventive Medicine fellow. 

Emily Nenon, MPA, the Alaska government relations director for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, will receive the 2024 David P. Rall Award for Advocacy in Public Health for her dedication to tobacco control policy work and access to care. Nenon has advocated for statewide tobacco-free legislation, such as a smoke-free workplace laws, and has worked toward Medicaid expansion as a founding member of Alaskans Together for Medicaid. Through her role at the Cancer Action Network, she also hosts annual policy forums to work with the state’s public health community to advance cancer prevention and care throughout Alaska. 

Wilma Wooten, MD, MPH, who recently retired as San Diego County, California’s public health officer, will receive the 2024 Milton and Ruth Roemer Prize for Creative Local Public Health Work for maximizing data and technology to achieve health equity for San Diego County residents. Wooten identified a health model linking poor health behaviors to four deadly chronic diseases, which guides the work of Live Well San Diego, a community health improvement program run by partnerships aimed to promote the well-being of over 3 million San Diego County residents. During the onset of COVID-19, Wooten achieved one of the highest COVID-19 vaccination rates in southern California after launching a health equity dashboard to find areas with high infection rates and using a Healthy Places Index tool to find the least healthiest residents based on the social determinants of health. 

Elaine Abrams, MD, a professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at ICAP at Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health, and Kenn Harris, maternal and child Health expert of The Emu Consultants, LLC, will each receive a 2024 Martha May Eliot Award

Abrams is being honored for her national and global work in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment in pregnant women and children. She helped create one of the country’s first family-focused centers to provide wraparound treatment for children living with HIV in New York City, including the use of antiretroviral drugs. Her work in New York City inspired global research that made antiretroviral drugs available to pregnant women in 13 countries. She is one of the founding members of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health’s International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Program, known as ICAP. Through federally-funded research at ICAP, she has helped expand HIV testing and treatment in under-resourced countries. 

Harris is being honored for his innovation in maternal and child health care through his work with Healthy Start, a federally-funded program aimed at improving maternal and child health in areas with high infant mortality rates. His career began in Boston, Massachusetts, and New Haven, Connecticut, where he created programming to reduce racial disparities in maternal and child health welfare, such as mental health care services for mothers living in poverty and initiatives focused on getting fathers involved with child health outcomes. Under the National Healthy Start Association, where he also served as a board president, Harris was a co-creator of the Core Adaptive Model for Fatherhood to encourage fathers to embrace their role in protecting their family’s health. He was also involved with the National Institute for Children’s Health Quality as a vice president of engagement and community partnerships, and the center’s Healthy Start Technical Assistance and Support Center where he guided staff located at over 100 Healthy Start programs across the country. 

Perry N. Halkitis, PhD, MS, MPH, dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health, will receive the 2024 Helen Rodriguez-Trias Social Justice Award for his advocacy work and research aimed at improving the health of the LGBTQ+ community. He gained recognition for his long-term research on co-occurring health issues among young men having sex with men, such as smoking use and HPV vaccine misinformation, and founded the Annals of LGBTQ+ Public & Population Health, a peer-reviewed journal focused on LGBTQ+ public health and public policy research. He also chaired an Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health task force promoting zero tolerance on sexual harassment and discrimination in higher education. 

Yara M. Asi, PhD, MA an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida’s School of Global Health Management and Informatics, will receive the 2024 Victor Sidel and Barry Levy Award for Peace for raising awareness about human rights violations during conflict. Asi is widely published in outlets such as The Washington Post and The New York Times for her research and insight on global health and human rights. Her recently released book “How War Kills: The Overlooked Threats to Our Health” looks at the public health risks of war such as the collapse of infrastructure and disease outbreaks. Asi also mentors scholars advocating for peace, presents regularly at APHA’s Annual Meeting, and chairs the APHA International Health Section’s Palestine Health Justice Working Group. 

Jagdish Khubchandani, MBBS, PhD, MPH, a professor of public health at New Mexico State University, will receive the 2024 Lyndon Haviland Public Health Mentoring Award for mentoring students from underrepresented populations to become the future public health workforce. Khubchandani has given multiple professional development opportunities to hundreds of students, such as those who are first generation college students or are underrepresented in STEM-related fields such as biomedical sciences. Over the years, Khubchandani has set students up for success by adding them to his research teams, writing letters of recommendation and advising their doctoral dissertations. He also connected them with the peer-review publishing world where, as chief editor of the Journal of Medicine, Surgery, and Public Health, he formed an editorial board that included first generation college students. 

Heather Tillewein, PhD, MCHES assistant professor in Austin Peay State University’s Department of Health and Human Performance, will receive the 2024 Ayman El-Mohandes Young Professional Public Health Innovation Award for her research on the sexual health and well-being of women and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Tillewein has lead investigative projects on sexual violence in the military and the hesitancy of LGBTQ+ college students to report assaults, among other subjects. A member of APHA’s LGBTQ Health Caucus, she has also mentored emerging public health professionals through the Boston Congress of Public Health and was one of the first fellows of the Harvard Public Health Review Fellowship where she authored an award winning blog on issues such as surviving conversion therapy and sex workers in higher education. 

McKenzie Cowlbeck, MPH, the Oklahoma Public Health Association's policy director, will receive the 2024 Giorgio A. Piccagli Leadership Award for elevating the Oklahoma Affiliate’s profile through policy, advocacy and workforce development. From the time Cowlbeck was a student intern through earning her Master of Public Health, she has revitalized the Affiliate’s approach to state public health legislation by planning retreats to create policy agendas, tracking relevant bills in the state capitol and holding an Affiliate advocacy day where public health advocates can meet with state lawmakers to discuss issues that matter to them. She has also expanded access to continuing education credits through the Affiliate and has often represented the Affiliate at APHA trainings and events, such as the annual Policy Action Institute.

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The American Public Health Association champions optimal, equitable health and well-being for all. With our broad-based member community and 150-year perspective, we influence federal policy to improve the public’s health. Learn more at www.apha.org.