2024 Social Determinants of Health Symposium

Sadiya Muqueeth, DrPH, MPH, Associate Director, Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute; Faculty, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; and Chief Health Policy Officer, Baltimore City Health Department.

Lisa Cooper, MD, MPH, FACP, Director, Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute and the Center for Health Equity; James F. Fries Professor of Medicine & Bloomberg Distinguished Professor for Equity in Health & Health Care, Johns Hopkins University Schools of Medicine, Nursing, & Public Health. [Slide Decks]

Maria Harris Tildon, Vice President, Government, Community & Economic Partnerships, Johns Hopkins University & Medicine. [Slide Decks]

Ihuoma Emenuga, MD, Health Commissioner, Baltimore City Health Department.

2023 Community Health Needs Assessment (CHNA) Overview, Findings, and Discussion

Introduction to the CHNA experts and the unique collaboration between the Baltimore City Health Department (BCHD) and UHI on the Local Health Improvement Coalition (LHIC).

Presenters: 

[Slide Decks]

• Tamara Green, MD MPH, Chief Medical Officer, Baltimore City Health Department
• Elise Bowman, Population Health and Care Coordination Program Director, Baltimore City Health Department

Moderator: Vanya Jones, PhD, MPH, Associate Director at the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute; Assistant Dean of Community Engaged Research and Associate Professor and the inaugural Assistant Dean of Community Engaged Research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Community and academic insights and perspectives

Nneka N'namdi, Chief Executive Officer, Fight Blight Bmore

Melissa deCardi Hladek PhD, CRNP, FNP-BC, Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing, Nurse Practitioner at Esperanza Center, and President of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses DC Metro Chapter [Slide Decks]

Q&A with audience with both keynote speakers

Moderator: Sadiya Muqueeth, DrPH, MPH, Associate Director, Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute, Faculty, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Chief Health Policy Officer, Baltimore City Health Department

Morning Reflections

Brandin Bowden, MSc, Operations Director, Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute

Announcements and Housekeeping

Sadiya Muqueeth, DrPH, MPH, Associate Director, Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute, Faculty, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Chief Health Policy Officer, Baltimore City Health Department 

Lunch, Vendors, and Networking

Mindie Flamholz, Director, Healing Minutes

Afternoon Kickoff

Kendrick Gwynn, MD, MPH, Associate Director, Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute, Internal Medicine, Johns Hopkins Community Physicians @ Remington, Assistant Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

Presentation with Q&A

Afternoon Keynote: Hossein Zare, PhD, Associate Research Professor, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health [Slide Decks]

Moderator: Kendrick Gwynn, MD, MPH

audience navigates to their panel locations

Workshop Report Outs

High-level takeaways, aha moments, and sparks from workshops

Elise Bowman, Population Health and Care Coordination Program Director, Baltimore City Health Department

Funders panel

• Alice Kennedy, Housing Commissioner, Baltimore City Department of Housing and Community Development
• Elvis Guzman, Program Officer, The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation
• Beth Harber, Senior Program Officer, Community Development & Environment, Abell Foundation
• Erin S. O’Keefe, MPP, Senior Program Officer, France-Merrick Foundation

Moderator: Kelly Bower, PhD, MSN/MPH, RN, Associate Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, Associate Director, Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute

Lisa Cooper, MD, MPH, FACP 

Director, Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute

James F. Fries Professor of Medicine & Bloomberg Distinguished Professor for Equity in Health & Health Care, Johns Hopkins University Schools of Medicine, Nursing, & Public Health

Lauren Averella is a Senior Program Director at Civic Works, a Baltimore-based nonprofit that has helped over 8,000 older adults age in place since 2008. Lauren launched Civic Works’ two largest elder services initiatives, Cities for All Ages, which began in 2013 and helps older adults prevent falls by making home safety modifications and providing case management and occupational therapy, and administrating Housing Upgrades to Benefit Seniors (HUBS), a city-wide partnership between 15 organizations which began in 2015 and helps older adults access major home repairs.

Brandin Bowden, MSc is the Operations Director for the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute. He is also a 2019 Bunting Neighborhood Leadership Fellow. Brandin has more than a decade of distinguished experience in program development and community and stakeholder engagement within the nonprofit sector.

Elise Bowman is the Population Health and Care Coordination Program Director at the Baltimore City Health Department. Before joining the Baltimore City Health Department, Elise worked at the National Health Leads Office where she served as the Director of Partnerships and Initiatives, advising on strategy and operations related to community-driven essential need initiatives and social determinants of health. 

Camille E. Burke is a Director of Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention for the Baltimore City Health Department and she is currently the Deputy Chief of Staff.

Dr. Kelly Bower’s research and her public health nursing practice focus on the elimination of racial disparities in women’s, maternal, and infant health. She aims to understand the structural and social determinants that underlie disparities and develop interventions to reverse them.

Dr. Chuck Callahan is a Clinical Professor of Pediatrics for the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Dr. Callahan is also a retired Army colonel and physician executive with more than thirty-five years of experience who has served in a range of health care leadership positions from PICU service chief to hospital chief medical officer, chief operating officer, and chief executive officer.

LaQuida Chancey is an entrepreneur, IT freelancer, and co-owner of Xavier Estates, LLC, a full-service real estate company. LaQuida is also the Founder and Director of Smalltimore Homes.

Dr. Lisa Cooper is a Liberian-born general internist, social epidemiologist, and health services researcher. As the Director of the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute, Dr. Cooper leads the Institute in its mission to advance health and health equity across Baltimore City. Dr. Cooper is also the James F. Fries Professor of Medicine and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor for Equity in Health and Health Care in the Johns Hopkins University Schools of Medicine, Nursing, and Public Health. She is the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity, where she and her transdisciplinary team work with stakeholders, from healthcare and the community implement rigorous clinical trials, identifying interventions that alleviate racial and income disparities in social determinants and health outcomes.

Executive Director, Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership

Dr. Ihuoma Emenuga is the Baltimore City Commissioner of Health. As the Chief Health Strategist for the City, she directs and oversees the public health programs and initiatives which impact the health and wellbeing of the City’s residents.

Mindie Flamholz is the Director of Healing Movements. She is also a certified Health Coach and Qi Gong Instructor. She has trained with Qi Gong masters from around the world and incorporates their various styles in her teaching. Focusing on intentional breathing and easy to learn mindful movements, Mindie incorporates Qi Gong healing sounds and colors to decrease stress and increase the energy (Qi) and wellbeing of participants.

Veronica Eva (Helms) Garrison is a government researcher (Analyst and Team Lead; Data and Research) with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development & Research. Veronica joined the Federal government in 2014 as a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) Presidential Management Fellow under the Obama administration. In addition to her role at HUD, Veronica is an agency fellow with Harvard’s JPB Environmental Health Fellowship Program.

Dr. Tamara Green is the Chief Medical Officer at the Baltimore City Health Department. She is a health policy-focused emergency medicine physician and public health practitioner with over 15 years of healthcare experience.

Elvis Guzman joined The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation in 2019 as a Program Officer, advancing the Foundation’s work related to Health in the United States. Prior to joining the Weinberg Foundation, Elvis was Program Officer for Health and Human Services at the Abell Foundation, focusing on projects that addressed the social determinants of health in Baltimore City.

Dr. Kendrick Gwynn, MD, MPH is an associate director for the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute overseeing strategic goal #3 – dialogue and trust. Dr. Gwynn is a primary care physician at the Johns Hopkins Community Physicians Remington practice and is the assistant medical director for the Care, Coding and Revenue Enhancement (C-CARE) Team within the Office of Johns Hopkins Physicians.

Beth Harber is a Senior Program Officer for Community Development and Environment with the Abell Foundation. Her work focuses on programs, policies, and research to increase resident investment in neighborhoods; promote household stability; expand entrepreneurship and business incubation; and address environmental justice, pollution reduction, and climate threats to health.

Bobby Harris, MSN-CRNP, MPH, Mobile Clinical Services Medical Director, Baltimore City Health Department

Matt Hill is an attorney and team leader of the Human Right to Housing Project at the Public Justice Center.

Melissa deCardi Hladek PhD, CRNP, FNP-BC is an Assistant Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing and a researcher-clinician focusing on how stress, self-efficacy, and sociocultural factors influence the biology of aging and chronic disease.

Alice Huang is the Acting Assistant Commissioner of Community Services for the Baltimore City Health Department, Division of Aging. She oversees programs serving older adults, including nutrition, health promotions, family caregivers, and senior center. 

Dr. Vanya Jones is an Associate Professor and the inaugural Assistant Dean of Community Engaged Research at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. And also Associate Director at the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute.

Aaron Kaufman builds and manages coalitions of Central Baltimore neighborhood organizations and a wide range of strategic stakeholders (non-profits, governmental agencies, residents, etc), focusing on CBP’s Front and Center Equity Plan, the Greenmount, Life, Opportunities, and Wellness Initiative, and its open space, capital improvement program called Spruce-Up.

Alice Kennedy became Acting Commissioner of the Baltimore City Department of Housing and Community Development in 2020 and Housing Commissioner in 2021.

Dr. McCormack is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She is a physician scientist with a research focus on the effect of environmental influences on underlying obstructive lung disease- specifically climate change, air pollution, and dietary influences on COPD and asthma. She is the director of the Bridging Research, Lung Health and the Environment (BREATHE) Center.

Dr. Sadiya Muqueeth, DrPH, MPH is an Associate Director for the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute. Dr. Muqueeth joined the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Department of Health Policy and Management in April 2023 as an assistant scientist and the Chief Health Policy Officer for the Baltimore City Health Department (BCHD). Dr. Muqueeth plays an essential role in developing BCHD’s health policy agenda and advances BCHD’s Public Health 3.0 initiative.

Nneka N'namdi is Baltimore based, engaging in social mission driven business and community wellness work. She lives in Upton. It is one of Baltimore's most storied but blighted neighborhoods and her lived experience there has given birth to Fight Blight Bmore, a social and environmental justice tool for residents to identify, report track and remediate blight.

Erin S. O’Keefe is a senior program officer at the France-Merrick Foundation where she aims to advance population health, healthy food access, housing security, and neighborhood stabilization through investments in non-profit organizations and public-private collaborations.

Julia Roche serves as the Legislative Affairs Director at the Baltimore City Health Department, where she is responsible for leading the agency's legislative efforts. Partnering closely with the Mayor's Office, she works to promote public health and wellbeing of Baltimore City residents through policy strategies at the local, state, and (sometimes) federal levels.

Nico Sanders, the President, and CEO of Community Housing Associates (CHA) is a visionary leader dedicated to driving transformative change within Baltimore City. With a distinguished background in executive leadership spanning both business and nonprofit with a concertation in mental health, Mr. Sanders brings a wealth of expertise and a relentless drive to enhance CHA's impact on the community it serves.

Director, Ernestina Simmons, LCSW-C, has proven to be a results-driven and dynamic human services leader over her 25-plus year career in child welfare, supportive housing programs, homeless services, and clinical services. Simmons holds an undergraduate degree in Social Work from Adelphi University and a Master’s degree in Social Work from Fordham University, in addition to being a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW-C) in Maryland. For the first 15 years of her career, she worked in various positions in the child welfare sector in Baltimore County and Baltimore City, and has spent the last 10 years in leadership roles in non-profit organizations across Baltimore City. She now serves at the Executive Director of the Mayor’s Office of Homeless Services in Baltimore City, Maryland.

Lashelle Stewart is the Executive Director for Baltimore Healthy Start, Inc. She is a native Baltimorean and received her undergraduate degree at Coppin State University, a historically black college/university in Baltimore City.

Krismir Thomas is a Community Strategist and the Co-Founder of Baltimore Star Project. Her impact extended to East Baltimore, where she contributed to large-scale facade and affordable housing initiatives, fostering inclusive urban development.

Maria Harris Tildon is vice president for state and local affairs for Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Medicine where she spearheads Johns Hopkins’ legislative and regulatory agenda in Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Florida.

Imani Yasin is the Director of Strategic Initiatives for Parity. Imani is also a community development leader, public speaker, educator, mentor, artist, and equity facilitator who has committed herself to developing catalysts for positive change by leading and working alongside youth and adults since 2007.

Dr. Zare holds a PhD in health policy and management. He is an Associate Research Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is Adjunct Professor at University of Maryland Global Campus. His independent program of research on understanding hospitals' contributions to communities, hospital tax, and their impact on reducing poverty, disparities and improving health outcomes.