Work: What’s Love Got to Do with It?

Alicia Justice, MPH never imagined pursuing a doctoral degree, let alone one focused on the power of love in the workplace. After years of working alongside community health workers (CHWs) as a tobacco prevention analyst for the Oklahoma City County Health Department, however, Justice could not set aside her growing questions and concerns surrounding the ways in which workplaces fail to support the psychological well-being of their employees.

Justice, now a fourth year DrPH candidate at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a concentration in Health Equity & Social Justice, believes that love has a vital role to play in the workplace and has the potential to improve health equity. She advocates for creating environments founded on compassion, grace, and patience.

“Humans are made up of emotions. And so, to think that we can't bring emotions to the workplace is just really silly… there is room for us to operate with each other with love,” she says.

Reflecting on her journey, Justice acknowledges the transformative power of research in shaping her perspective. Through conversations with mentors and colleagues, Justice realized that the ideas she considered little more than personal reflections could impact health practice.

“I was talking to some folks who I really look up to in the public health space… I said, ‘why isn't anyone talking about the conditions of how we do the business of public health?” Justice says. “Why aren't we examining… this body of work related to health equity? And the person I was talking to said that sounds like a research question. That conversation alone is what brought me to Hopkins."

Under the mentorship of Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity faculty member Jill Marsteller, PhD, MPP, Justice’s is examining how public health organizations can operationalize a culture of equity within the workplace. Her work delves into two main areas: assessing workforce perceptions of organizational justice theory and exploring the concept of psychological safety among public health professionals.

“I am really just personally passionate about inviting love into the workplace,” says Justice. “I know for some people that feels very uncomfortable and almost like we can't have emotions and feelings and love in the workplace. But I firmly disagree with that.”

In Justice's view, incorporating love into organizational culture benefits employee well-being and enhances productivity and effectiveness. When applied to CHWs, this concept has the power to improve greater health equity in the communities that the CHWs serve.

Upon beginning her research, Justice found that public health entities have been omitted from the existing literature. This finding, paired with her experience working with CHWs, has inspired Justice to examine public health institutions and agencies.

“I am really just personally passionate about inviting love into the workplace. I know for some people that feels very uncomfortable and almost like we can't have emotions and feelings and love in the workplace. But I firmly disagree with that.”

                                                                                                                                          - Alicia Justice, MPH

“[I wanted] specifically to see what the field could learn from us, and also to see what we could do better so that we truly are in the best position to advance equity and solve these very challenging problems within the community,” she says.

As Justice continues her work at the intersection of public health and workplace equity, she remains committed to fostering environments where love and compassion thrive and seeks to inspire a shift in how we create healthy work environments, ultimately advancing health equity for all.

For Justice, fostering loving and supportive work environments is a matter of health equity, both within the workforce and in community health initiatives. By prioritizing care and equity in the workplace, public health organizations and their employees can better serve the needs of communities. Justice believes that a supportive work environment is essential for public health professionals to effectively tackle complex health challenges with compassion and resilience.

“We are advancing health equity among a workforce that really needs this nurturing and to be cared for so that they can go out and do this really hard, complicated, investigative work and do it with compassion, with the same grace and care that they receive in the workplace,” Justice says.  

She goes on to say that “while community health work is rewarding, it is really challenging. So, I think there's a lot to be gained in the way in which we activate and integrate health equity principles into public health work. And there's a way for us to better refine that if we are essentially practicing what we're preaching day-to-day in the way in which we function as a public health workforce.”

“We are advancing health equity among a workforce that really needs this nurturing and to be cared for so that they can go out and do this really hard, complicated, investigative work and do it with compassion, with the same grace and care that they receive in the workplace.”

                                                                                                                                        - Alicia Justice, MPH

In a world where love is often relegated to personal relationships, Justice reminds us that love has a place in the workplace—a place where compassion, empathy, and understanding pave the way for a brighter, more equitable future.