Black-owned well being and health entrepreneurs and well being specialists been remodeling industries for the higher so long as they’ve existed. As far again as Dr. James McCune Smith and Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler within the nineteenth century, Black Americans have made very important contributions to public well being, medical analysis, well being enterprise, and well being schooling, regardless of arduous and discriminatory circumstances which have repeatedly meant to thwart their efforts and advances.
This article celebrates seven modern Black professionals working towards well being fairness for Black individuals throughout the US and the world.
Camesha L. Jones
Camesha L. Jones, LCSW is the founder and govt director of the Sista Afya Community Center, a social enterprise that gives low-cost psychological well being care to Black girls in Chicago. She is a licensed scientific social employee and group chief in psychological wellness who focuses on the intersection of tradition, group, and social justice.
She additionally based Sista Afya Community Care NFP, a nonprofit that gives free psychological well being care and schooling to girls dealing with limitations to care. Her work has been featured in varied media shops and she or he believes in making psychological well being care extra inexpensive and accessible for various cultural backgrounds by specializing in the general well-being of the person.
Dr. Noha Aboelata
Dr. Noha Aboelata, is the founding CEO of Roots Community Health Center, the place she has pioneered the supply of a community-based, community-driven, and community-empowering mannequin of well being and wellness. She can be a board member of the Alameda Alliance for Health. She has devoted her skilled life to eliminating well being disparities and enhancing the well being of marginalized communities
Dr. Aboelata, who was raised in Oakland, California, returned to Alameda County after finishing medical faculty so as to tackle well being disparities amongst African American residents and the foundation reason for poverty. She based Roots Community Health Center (Roots) in 2008 to offer complete healthcare to those that lack entry to conventional assist methods and security internet providers, primarily African American males re-entering society from jail, so as to assist of their journey in the direction of self-sufficiency. The heart has since expanded to serve girls and kids and presents major care, navigation providers, and employment alternatives to people and households in Alameda and Santa Clara counties.
Roots has over 10,000 lively shoppers, 89% of whom are African American and evenly break up between women and men, largely Medi-Cal recipients. The Roots’ holistic method is enhancing accessibility and consistency of care and enabling Dr. Aboelata and her colleagues to attach sufferers to a variety of assets that assist their well being, stability, and total wellness.
Dr. Noha Aboelata is a James Irvine Foundation Leadership Awards recipient, which acknowledges leaders whose modern options to important state challenges enhance individuals’s lives, create alternative, and contribute to a greater California.
Photo from: https://irvineawards.org/award-recipient/dr-noha-aboelata/
Tamara Melton
Tamara Melton, MS, RDN, CPHIMS, is the founding father of Diversify Dietetics, a 501(c)3 non-profit group whose mission is to extend the racial and ethnic range within the area of diet by empowering diet leaders of coloration. Diversify Dietetics supplies assist and workforce improvement packages to underrepresented college students and younger professionals of coloration within the area of dietetics.
Melton is a registered dietitian and diet educator with over 15 years of expertise in creating instructional content material and packages for organizations. She owns an organization referred to as TSM Nutrition Consultants, the place she helps organizations create evidence-based diet and well being schooling content material for customers. Tamara has a whole lot of media expertise and has been featured in lots of publications, together with NPR and CNN. She has additionally written articles for magazines like Self and Health.
Tamara is enthusiastic about supporting various college students and was the recipient of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics’ Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion National award in 2019.
Photo from: https://www.diversifydietetics.org/about
Angela Doyinsola Aina
Angela Doyinsola Aina, MPH is the co-founder and govt director of the Black Mamas Matter Alliance (BMMA), “a Black women-led cross-sectoral alliance that centers Black mamas and birthing people to advocate, drive research, build power, and shift culture for Black maternal health, rights, and justice.”
BMMA is a company that brings collectively professionals and group teams to advertise holistic maternity care and advocate for coverage and methods change.
Angela Doyinsola Aina has over 14 years of expertise in public well being, together with working as a Public Health Analyst and Health Communications Specialist on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Angela holds a Master of Public Health diploma and a Bachelor of Science diploma, and her experience and views on Black Maternal Health have been featured in varied media shops similar to Huffington Post, The Atlantic, the Root and HLN/CNN.
Aina was acknowledged as a 2020 WebMD Health Hero and highlighted as an advocate for Black Maternal Health in Time Magazine. She is enthusiastic about working in the direction of the self-determination of girls of African descent, eliminating violence in opposition to girls, selling Black and African girls’s rights and management, and discovering womanist options to social and financial injustices.
Photo from: https://blackmamasmatter.org/about/
Joel Bervell
Joel Bervell is greatest generally known as the “Medical Mythbuster” whose content material has repeatedly gone viral on TikTok and Instagram (@joelbervell). He reveals bias and racism within the medical schooling area, together with how broadly accepted methods for diagnoses make it much less seemingly for Black individuals to get identified with severe well being points.
Joel is a graduate of Yale University and Boston University, the place he studied Molecular Cellular Developmental Biology and Medical Science. He has labored as a scientific analysis assistant, and served as an elected member of Yale scholar authorities and the Medical Student Council President at Washington State University.
He can be the founding father of Coug Health Academic Mentoring Program (CHAMP) and the Medical Mythbuster on social media platforms, the place he has over 760,000+ followers and 120 million+ impressions. He has spoken at varied organizations, together with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and has been featured on Good Morning America, NPR, Yahoo News, and WebMD. He is at the moment concerned in varied initiatives together with the White House Office of Public Engagement’s Healthcare Leaders in Social Media Roundtable, the Council for Responsible Social Media, and the World Health Organization’s Digital Communications Team.
He has been acknowledged by varied organizations, together with TikTok and the Smithsonian Channel, and was named as one of many National Minority Quality Forum’s 40 Under 40 Leaders in Minority Health. He can be the co-founder of Hugs for, a non-profit that empowers highschool college students.
https://www.tiktok.com/@joelbervell/video/7150392134703566122
Photo from: http://joelbervell.com/
Dr. Martha Dawson
Dr. Martha A. Dawson, DNP, RN, FACHE, is an Associate Professor on the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Nursing, and can be the present president of the National Black Nurses’ Association. She has earned a number of levels in nursing, together with a Doctor of Nursing Practice from Case Western Reserve University.
Dr. Dawson’s work as a translational scientist focuses on administrative systematology, profession development, and addressing organizational injustices and limitations within the area of nursing. She is a co-convenor of the 2020 National Black Coalition Against COVID, and a co-lead on the 2020 National Commission on Racism in Nursing, which goals to enhance the picture and therapeutic throughout the nursing occupation for Black and Brown nurses.
Dr. Dawson has served in senior stage positions and managed her personal healthcare marketing consultant enterprise. She is a Fellow within the American College of Healthcare Executives, Robert Wood Johnson Nurse Executive Fellow, and a Johnson & Johnson Wharton Nurse Administrative Fellow alumna. She has acquired quite a few grants, and in 2004, was acknowledged as a Distinguished Citizen of Louisville, Kentucky. She has printed in varied books, journals, newsletters, and podcasts. She was additionally the inaugural director of Nursing and Health Systems Leadership tracks UABSON, which was ranked #1 within the US for 12 years by US News & World Report. She was lately featured on Good Morning America the place she talked about forging house and respect for Black nurses, and strengthening STEM packages in predominantly Black colleges.
Image from: https://scholars.uab.edu/display/madawson
Dr. Andrea Hayes
Dr. Andrea A. Hayes, is an American surgeon who was the primary African American feminine pediatric surgeon board-certified within the United States. She was additionally the primary pediatric surgeon to carry out a high-risk, life-saving process in kids with a uncommon type of most cancers and developed the primary orthotropic xenograft mannequin of metastatic Ewing’s sarcoma.
Dixon is at the moment the Chairwoman of Surgery at Howard University Hospital and has been honored with varied awards and recognition for her work. She was appointed by President Donald Trump to take a seat on the National Cancer Advisory Board, named to American Pediatric Surgical Association’s board of administrators, and elected President of the Society of Black Academic Surgeons. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she was additionally acknowledged by the Triangle Business Journal as one in all its 2020 Health Care Heroes.
Image from: https://www.med.unc.edu/surgery/hayes-named-howard-chair-of-surgery/
Main Takeaways
This article highlights seven Black well being professionals who’re working onerous of their respective fields towards a extra equitable society the place Black people have entry to well timed, affirming, and high-quality healthcare and wellness-related providers.
This record calls consideration to solely seven of those professionals, however there are 1000’s extra who’re actively making individuals’s lives higher of their communities and past.
Today, we encourage you to achieve out and assist these well being professionals, amplifying their efforts and their causes.
Sources:
https://irvineawards.org/award-recipient/dr-noha-aboelata/
https://www.diversifydietetics.org/about
https://www.linkedin.com/in/tamaramelton/
https://www.communitycare.sistaafya.com/
https://www.med.unc.edu/surgery/hayes-named-howard-chair-of-surgery/