December 2022 Letter from the Director

Published
Health Equity
Lisa Cooper

Center for Health Equity Director, Lisa Cooper, MD, MPH

Welcome to the December 2022 edition of Health Equity Happenings, the Center for Health Equity’s digital newsletter.

As the days grow shorter and the end of the year approaches, I often find myself reflecting on the people and events that have shaped my experiences over the past year, what I’ve learned, and how I will carry those insights into the upcoming year.

We’ve embarked upon a “new normal”. We’re continuing to explore how we live and work in relationship with one another, and although it’s still unclear how we’ll adjust, there’s also excitement about the possibilities. While the pandemic is not truly over, the improvement in uptake of the coronavirus vaccines and boosters has brought hope. I am sure I speak for us all when I say that the hard times over the past couple of years have made me even more grateful for all of the wonderful people in my life, and for opportunities to serve and work alongside them.

I’m proud of all the Center for Health Equity has accomplished in 2022 and confident that the future of health equity research is bright. Here are just a few of our accomplishments in 2022:

  • We had three new faculty members join the Center for Health Equity core faculty: Drs. Kelly Bower, S. Michelle Ogunwole, and Lena Mathews.

  • The Mid-Atlantic Center for Cardiometabolic Health Equity (MACCHE), co-led by myself and Dr. Deidra Crews,  is off the ground and running full-speed, with three intervention studies that address cardiometabolic disease disparities in Maryland: Health for Two Home-Visiting (H42-HV) Program (Principal Investigators Drs. Wendy Bennett and Kelly Bower); UNLOAD Heart Failure (Principal Investigators Dr. Chiadi Ndumele and yours truly); and LINKED HEARTS (Principal Investigators, Drs. Yvonne Commodore-Mensah and Cheryl Dennison Himmelfarb). The projects have spent most of the year engaging with stakeholders, preparing study protocols, and recruiting new staff. Dr. Chidinma Ibe, Rev. Debra Hickman and I have the opportunity to serve as co-leads of the Community Engagement Core where we have cultivated relationships with community partners and strengthened our capacity for collaboration and shared leadership. Our Investigator Development Core, co-led by Drs. Tanjala Purnell and Somnath Saha, has funded innovative research projects led by seven early-stage investigators while providing a network for mentoring and training support.

  • We shared the results of the RICH Life Project, co-led by Dr. Jill Marsteller and me, and the Five Plus Nuts and Beans for Kidneys Trial, led by Drs. Deidra Crews and Edgar “Pete” Miller  III, with our health system partners and community advisory board members in October.

  • Dr. Crews presented results of the Five Plus Nuts and Beans for Kidneys Trial at the American Society of Nephrology’s Kidney Week in November. She and Dr. Anika Hines, (a former Center trainee who is now on faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University) led the Center in hosting a symposium in June that served as a platform for conversations about food disparities in Baltimore and the premier of the Five Plus PhotoVoice project.

  • Dr. Crews and I had the chance to participate in a panel discussion moderated by Delegate Joseline A. Peña Melnyk, at the Maryland State Affairs Team’s “Showcase Series” in July, where we discussed the Center for Health Equity and Urban Health Institute’s impact on the quality of life for Marylanders across the state.

  • We hosted three Bloomberg Distinguished Professor Summer Program students, a Medical Student Training in Aging Research (MSTAR) Program student, and a Morgan State University student  who was our inaugural Reverend Dr. Mankekolo Summer Fellow (a fellowship we created to honor the memory of our dear community advisory board member who passed away in 2019).

  • Our two live Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) have now trained over 7,000 individuals interested in expanding their knowledge on health equity research and best practices. Early in 2023, we will release a third MOOC, “Local to Global Bi-directional Best Practices in Health Equity Research”.

One topic that has become paramount over the pandemic is the role of Community Health Workers (CHWs) in improving the health of their neighbors. It has always been a mission of mine, and of my mentee and colleague, Dr. Chidinma Ibe, to ensure that this group of vital healthcare workers gets the recognition and compensation they deserve. To help elevate their voices, we collaborated with my colleague and friend from the MacArthur Fellows Program, LaToya Ruby Frazier—a talented artist of many mediums. With the help of Dr. Anika Hines, Reverend Debra Hickman (President and CEO of STAR and our community advisory board co-chair), and Mrs. Tiffany Scott (President of the Maryland Association of Community Health Workers), the outcome of our collaboration, More than Conquerors: A Monument for Community Health Workers of Baltimore, Maryland 2021-2022, is on display at Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Our coinciding photovoice project on CHWs and their impact on communities during COVID-19, led by Dr. Ibe, “Amplifying the Lived Experiences of Community Health Workers”, was featured in the exhibit and we are currently working on a paper that we hope will be published in 2023.

In addition to my role as Director of the Center, I’ve also had the opportunity to lead the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute, where we’ve had many successes building community-academic partnerships, supporting local health equity initiatives, training young leaders from Baltimore, and advancing dialogue related to health equity in Baltimore. Our 2022 Social Determinants of Health Symposium focused on the topic of civic engagement, political engagement, and health equity and was attended by community members, researchers, public health practitioners, and policymakers from across the United States, and the recording has had over 7,000 views.

Finally, I’ve had the privilege of working with the Biden Administration as a member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. In this role, I am co-leading the Public Health workgroup with Dr. Susan Desmond-Hellmann, where we are advocating for health equity and its place in federal legislation and health and healthcare programs. I am grateful for President Biden and Vice-President Harris’ leadership on issues related to health equity and social justice, as well as the growing support for health equity that is demonstrated by the federal government and other sectors of our society.

All of these accomplishments are due to the support I receive from our talented team and remarkable community partners and from our collective commitment to solutions towards the greater good. Throughout 2022, we’ve reconnected with each other and our communities, worked tirelessly towards our goals, and created new ones. I am optimistic and excited to see where 2023 takes us as we continue to work for health and social justice in our local, national, and global communities.