Community Organizing and Community Building for Health and Welfare

About the Contributors

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS 465 JACQUIE ANDERSON is director of state consumer health advocacy at the Community Catalyst, where she provides state-level health policy, community organizing, and community education to consumer health advocacy and community organizations across the country. Her key areas of interest are organizational development and community organizing. Jacquie oversees Consumer Voices for Coverage for Community Catalyst and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and also oversees Southern Health Partners, Community Catalyst’s work in eleven southeastern states. She has more than fifteen years of experience working with community organizations on issues related to social justice and holds bachelor’s degrees from the University of Manitoba and the University of Windsor and a master’s degree from the University of Toronto. JEANNE AYERS, RN, MPH, currently serves as assistant commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Health. Her prior positions include director of nursing and preventive services at the University of Minnesota Boynton Health Service and executive director of the Center for Public Health Education and Outreach at the School of Public Health, University of Minnesota. Ayers was chief architect of ISAIAH’s health equity and healthy communities work and launched and directed the Healthy Heartland Initiative, a partnership of community organizations in five Midwestern states dedicated to building organizing capacity for health and racial equity. Ayers, who holds an MPH from the University of Minnesota, received the university’s 2010 Josie R. Johnson Human Rights and Social Justice Award for her work on health and racial equity. NICKIE BAZELL SATARIANO is an HIV/AIDS activist who has worked at the local, national, and international levels to help reduce health inequities. She is the HIV program manager for the health justice organization, the Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum, in San Francisco. Bazell Satariano received her MPH in health and social behavior from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health. ADAM B. BECKER, PhD, MPH, is executive director of the Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children (CLOCC), a nationally recognized organization with a coordinated, multisector and multilevel approach to preventing childhood obesity housed at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago. CLOCC’s broad-based network of over three thousand individuals representing over twelve hundred organizations has been identified as a leading community model by the Institute of Medicine, the American Medical Association, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Becker has helped develop and provide technical assistance to local and statewide coalitions addressing obesity, youth violence, HIV/AIDS, chronic disease, tobacco control, and public health system capacity building. JUDITH BELL is president of PolicyLink and has been there since its founding in 1990. Under her central leadership, PolicyLink has developed into a national voice for access and opportunity for all people—particularly low-income people and communities of color. Bell oversees efforts to develop and advocate for an array of equitable policies, including those focused on improving health and infrastructure . Bell helped create the Promise Neighborhoods Institute at PolicyLink, and also led PolicyLink’s push for a national Healthy Food Financing Initiative to improve access to healthy foods in underserved communities. She continues to engage in efforts to change policy at the national, state, and local levels and is also a regular speaker, trainer, and media voice on these issues. ANGELA GLOVER BLACKWELL is founder and CEO of PolicyLink. Under her leadership, PolicyLink has become a leading voice in the movement to use public policy to improve access and opportunity for all low-income people and communities of color, particularly in the areas of health, housing, transportation, education , and infrastructure. Prior to founding PolicyLink, Blackwell served as senior vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation, where she oversaw the foundation’s domestic and cultural divisions. A lawyer by training, she gained national recognition as founder of the Oakland, California, Urban Strategies Council, where she pioneered new approaches to neighborhood revitalization. As a leading voice in the movement for equity in the United States, Blackwell is a frequent commentator for some of the nation’s top news organizations, including the Washington Post, Salon, and the Huffington Post, and has appeared regularly on such shows as public radio’s Marketplace, The Tavis Smiley Show, Nightline, and PBS’s Now. LYNN BLANCHARD, PhD, MPH, is director of the Carolina Center for Public Service at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and also holds an appointment as clinical associate professor in health behavior and health education at the University of North Carolina School of Public Health. Her...