An advocate for access to quality healthcare, a student of socioeconomics and equity, and a seeker of equality in justice and among humanity. Selena Smith joins us on the podcast to discuss her career journey and current role as COO of GRO Community, a mental health organization specializing in providing mental health services and support to Black men, by Black men.

Selena is passionate about ensuring that the support needed to educate underserved and underrepresented populations is present and available. Join the conversation to hear a detailed background on Selena including what catapulted her into a career in public health.

Selena highlights what it means to her to be a part of the Black Caucus of APHA and she delves into her role as COO and the mission behind GRO Community. Mental health as public health is also discussed, why we should normalize visiting a therapist, and why we, especially Black women, should not operate on zero.

To hear all this, and much more, be sure not to miss out on this great and insightful episode of the Public Health Epidemiology Conversations podcast. Thanks for tuning in!

PHEC Podcast

Although February is American Heart Month, a time when the nation spotlights heart disease, it is an important topic to highlight all year long. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. In most cases, heart disease is preventable but there are often several barriers for many communities to access and easy-to-understand resources and information on the topic.

We recently focused on this topic in our Public Health Roundtable discussion on LinkedIn. In this episode, we share that insightful discussion and tell you how you can join the conversation. Listen in as Dr. Huntley and Ericka Horne, community engagement expert, discuss strategies for hosting this topic within the communities you serve.

Hear more ways to make resources for heart-healthy living more accessible, the value of meeting communities where they are, plus so much more!

PHEC Podcast

Public Health Entrepreneurs  

Our guest is passionate about the heart of one of America's most critical issues, food insecurity. Joining Dr. Huntley on the podcast is Rachel Cahill, MPA, the principal consultant and owner of a policy and advocacy consulting firm serving anti-hunger and anti-poverty organizations across the country.

Rachel is a nationally recognized expert in public benefits eligibility and enrollment policy, specializing in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as SNAP. Rachel is passionate about making SNAP stronger, more accessible, and more equitable. They delve into how the public health industry has been integral in her advocacy journey and why she’s so passionate about anti-hunger and the SNAP program.

They discuss where the tension lies in the anti-hunger activism sphere, how the knowledge of public health helps her better serve her clients and community, and the science that backs up SNAP.

Through getting to know Rachel, Dr. Huntley hopes to showcase how public health overlaps with a lot of different industries and to see public health in action from a slightly different perspective! 

PHEC Podcast

The field of public health is so broad! In this episode, we are connecting it to social work and more specifically, grant writing to demonstrate how we can have a greater impact in the field of public health. Grant writer and founder of the Bell Tower Group, LaKeesha Morris-Moreau joins us to share about her public service work and how she brings value to her community.

Tuning in, you’ll hear all about LaKeesha’s background, how she got into social work, why she started the Bell Tower Group, as well as the story behind its name. We discuss why she decided to niche her career and how contracts work in her industry. LaKeesha even shares some tips for anyone wanting to partner with contractors or become contractors themselves. Finally, our guest tells us how public health shows up in the work she does.

To hear all this and be enlightened about how public health truly is everywhere, press play now!

Visit the PHEC Podcast Show Notes:

https://PHECPodcast.com/

Grab Your FREE 10-Page PHEC Podcast eBook:

https://mypublichealthcareer.com/

DrCHHuntley, Public Health & Epidemiology Consulting:

https://www.drchhuntley.com/consulting 

Resources for Public Health Entrepreneurs

https://publichealthentrepreneurs.com/

On Public Health Epidemiology Conversations, we welcome back one of our guests from 2017, Dr. Juanita Braxton. She joins us to discuss how she is able to serve her community by providing public health education to faith-based organizations.

Tuning in, you’ll hear all about Dr. Braxton and Dr. Huntley’s relationship, their conversation back in episode four, what made our guest so passionate about public health and faith-based organizations in particular.  We also delve into the importance of making public health education easy to understand before Dr. Braxton tells us all about her incredible organization, Imani Consultants. Finally, she shares some key advice for anyone who is looking to build a career in public health. You don’t want to miss this one, so press play now!

Visit the PHEC Podcast Show Notes:

https://PHECPodcast.com/

Grab Your FREE 10-Page PHEC Podcast eBook:

https://mypublichealthcareer.com/

DrCHHuntley, Public Health & Epidemiology Consulting:

https://www.drchhuntley.com/consulting

Resources for Public Health Entrepreneurs

https://publichealthentrepreneurs.com/

Did you know that cervical cancer is almost entirely preventable with proper vaccination, regular screenings, pap smears, and HPV testing? Yet, so many women across the US are still being diagnosed with cervical cancer.

Join Dr. Huntley on the Public Health Epidemiology Conversations podcast, as she delves into the topic of cervical health and women’s health, alongside two innovative leaders, Erica Horn and Dr. Kristi McClamroch. We are passionate about having vulnerable conversations about important topics such as cervical health and women’s health in general and dive deep into how these topics affect women and the work we do in public health.

We highlight the importance of empowering young women, especially in the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) demographic, to both take action in their healthcare and learn to boldly advocate for themselves. We hope this talk is thought-provoking and continues the conversation on these topics. Thanks for tuning in!

If you work in public health, you’ve probably had to explain an industry term to the general public on more than one occasion. How often should we be doing this? How can we ensure that the information we’re conveying is understood by the broader community?

Join Dr. Huntley as she explores the intersection of public health, communication, and community to answer this fundamental question: How often should we define public health terms for the general public before we can be sure that they get it?

We unpack the many opportunities public health professionals have to improve their communication, how to engage with your community, why we should all be striving to learn from those we serve, and much more.

Tune in to hear it all!

You might think that the question ‘What is a chicken coop?’ is pretty straightforward and if you were to ask a farmer, you’d be right. However, if you posed the same question to a truck driver, there’s a high chance the answer would be radically different from anything you anticipated.

So, what does all this have to do with public health? Also, what does it matter if farmers and truckers give two wildly different answers?

In this episode, Dr. Huntley takes a closer look at the specialized terms we use as public health professionals, how this can often confuse those outside our field, and why learning to communicate clearly and effectively is so important.

Tune in to find out how you can learn to improve your communication, listen to feedback, become more receptive to non-verbal cues, and more, in today’s informative and thought-provoking conversation!

Zuwena Plata, a member of our data team, joins us in her capacity as an important member of our data team to reveal the impact that her work has had on her personal life. After getting a sense of her professional background, Zuwena details the work she’s currently involved in before explaining how and why this work affects her personally. We discover what she’s learned from her many professional-to-personal spillovers, how this overflow has improved both her personal and professional life, and what she wants listeners to take from her experiences.

DrCHHuntley LLC, public health consulting

Today’s guest is working towards making healthcare accessible, intuitive, and empowering. Vanessa Guzman’s goal is to empower and mobilize healthcare organizations, their staff, and community partners to innovate and maximize value. She joins us to discuss how her company is bringing healthcare and technology together in a way that helps patients win.

Vanessa is a biomedical engineer by training and the CEO of both SmartRise Health and Ella Es Health. Join us as we dive into her career, highlights from her journey that turned on her interest in public health, and the two areas of public health that fire up her passion. Vanessa also unpacks the mission that both SmartRise and Ella Es Health aim to accomplish and emphasizes how the understanding of public health helps them have a larger and more effective impact on their clients and community.

To hear more from Vanessa, including her advice for anyone wishing to pursue a similar career, be sure to tune in now!

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