Christina Vincent: A Passion for Public Health and Policy 

Christina Vincent has spent her career at the intersection of public health, research, and policy. As a Research Program Specialist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity (CHE), she has played a vital role in advancing community-centered initiatives and shaping public health recommendations.  

Vincent’s public health career began at Florida State University, where she earned her Masters of Public Health. During her time there, she interned at the Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration, which later turned into a full-time role. She worked closely with Florida’s Chief Medical Officer on various Medicaid initiatives, gaining firsthand experience in how research informs policy. “I just got a real taste for how research can be applied into policy,” she says. 

One of her most impactful projects involved leveraging financial incentives to increase COVID-19 vaccinations among Florida’s Medicaid recipients. “Through our intervention, we got 500,000 people in Florida vaccinated who wouldn’t have otherwise,” she said. The success of the initiative earned the team the National Association of Medicaid Directors Spotlight Award in 2021. 

“We take their contributions seriously and work intentionally to adapt our interventions to serve the people we’re trying to help.” 

In addition to pandemic response efforts, Vincent also worked on expanding postpartum Medicaid benefits in Florida, advocating for a shift from two months of coverage to a full year, ensuring that new mothers had access to critical healthcare services for a longer period. “That policy brief became the foundation for Florida Medicaid’s current evaluation plan,” she says, emphasizing the importance of data-driven policymaking. 

Eager to further explore the research side of public health, Vincent joined CHE in 2022 to support director Lisa Cooper, MD, MPH and CHE's policy and dissemination efforts. 

“A major reason that I was brought on to work with her was to work on PCAST,” Vincent says, referring to the Biden Administration’s President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST). She has contributed to multiple reports, including one on the public health workforce and another on social sciences. 

Vincent finds deep fulfillment in her work with the CHE Community Advisory Board (CAB), which connects the center with local communities. “Getting to know everybody that works with us so closely is a major highlight for me,” she said. “We take their contributions seriously and work intentionally to adapt our interventions to serve the people we’re trying to help.” 

While Vincent has accomplished much in her career so far, she is now pursuing the next step in her career: medical school. Her goal is to become a primary care physician, likely in internal or family medicine, while integrating her policy and research background into her medical practice. “There’s this gap that needs to be filled… many in medicine don’t fully understand the health system, and many policymakers don’t understand medical practice,” she explained. “I want to work toward closing that gap.” 

With a career rooted in public health research, policy, and community advocacy, Vincent is poised to make an even greater impact as a physician. Through her work at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity and her future career in medicine, Vincent is determined to make a lasting impact on public health.