_01.jpg)
_02.jpg)
Awards will honor South Carolinians whose work has saved lives
April 9, 2014
The James E. Clyburn Health Disparities Leadership Awards, being presented Friday (April 11) will recognize seven people whose research, health care and outreach efforts have enhanced - and even saved - the lives of people in the Palmetto State and beyond.
The awards presentation will be made during the seventh annual James E. Clyburn Health Disparities Lecture that begins at 9:30 a.m. at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center, 1110 Lincoln St.
Dr. Donna M. Christensen, the first female physician to serve in Congress, is the featured guest speaker. The theme for the program is "Moving Forward: Making the Affordable Care Act Work through Research, Education, and Community Engagement." The event also will include remarks by Congressman Clyburn on the impact of the legislation which has led to some 7 million more Americans having health care coverage.
Award recipients are:
- Dr. Donna Richter of Columbia, Pioneer in Public Health and Health Disparities Research;
- Maureen Boyd of Florence, Regional Award for Health Care Leadership;
- Dr. Sabra Slaughter of Charleston, State Award for Health Care Leadership;
- Dr. Ana Lòpez-De Fede of Columbia, Leadership in Public Health and Health Disparities Research;
- Dr. Renata Serricchio Leite of Charleston, Emerging Leader in Health Disparities Research;
- Rozalynn Goodwin of Columbia, Public Health and Health Disparities Community Leadership Award;
- Tiffany Sullivan of Columbia, Public Health and Health Disparities Community Leadership Award.
Dr. Donna Richter, a professor in HPEB and former dean of the Arnold School of Public Health, is among the recipients for the James E. Clyburn Health Disparities Leadership Awards.
Dr. Donna Richter is former dean of USC's Arnold School of Public Health and a professor in the Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior. The former Executive Director of the S.C. Public Health Institute, Richter has created and maintained partnerships and brought together communities and stakeholders to address multiple public health priorities and challenges, including the reduction and elimination of health disparities, and building community capacity to address emerging threats to public health. /p>
She began her research, training, and education career in the areas of HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, care and evaluation in the late 1980s. Since that time, she has led efforts to explore personal, organizational and environmental barriers to HIV care in rural, underserved, and minority communities; engaged communities in research on HIV/AIDS and related cancers found in underserved communities, and among racial/ethnic populations; and laid the groundwork for a state-wide HIV/AIDS Prevention Strategy for Youth.
Maureen Byrd, the breast health nurse navigator at the Breast Health Center at McLeod Regional Hospital in Florence, has been a tireless advocate for timely mammography screening and breast cancer treatment throughout her career as a nurse. Byrd makes herself available 24 hours a day to all of her patients who are found to have abnormal mammography findings. She is well-known for her sensitivity and compassion for African-American women with breast cancer who are living in the Pee Dee.
When Florence County was identified as an area with "high need" to reduce African-American breast cancer mortality, Byrd began a campaign to raise awareness and increase resources to the Pee Dee area for mammography screening. She has been an annual awardee from the Komen Lowcountry Affiliate Foundation for a community mammography screening program which aims to provide no-cost mammograms to eligible women. Byrd has been an active and engaged partner in research programs which focus on breast cancer in the PeeDee region, including the NCI-funded, Sistas Inspiring Sistas Through Activity and Support study and a Komen Foundation-funded study focused on implementing evidence-based clinical approaches to improve mammography screening adherence.
Dr. Sabra Slaughter is the chief of staff in the Medical University of South Carolina's Office of the President. An associate professor in MUSC's College of Medicine, Slaughter has spent the past 20 years of his career leading and facilitating a variety of projects focused on reducing health disparities and achieving health equity. He has led nine research projects related to health disparities, including South Carolina’s first NIH funded EXPORT Center, which was a Community Outreach, Research, Education and Training Partnership between MUSC and South Carolina State University. The Center directed its attention to the metabolic syndrome which includes hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, and obesity, all of which plague South Carolina communities. Project EXPORT also introduced minority faculty to health disparities research and provided pilot funding that would allow them to collect data for subsequent research awards.
Dr. Slaughter was responsible for developing a statewide outreach program designed to recruit and develop minority students for careers in the health professions. This program is still in existence today. More than 300 former participants in the S.C. Area Health Education Consortium’s Student Development and Diversity Programs have enrolled and completed health professions training programs and are employed in a variety of settings throughout the state of South Carolina and beyond.
Dr. Ana Lòpez-De Fede of the Division of Policy Research on Medicaid and Medicare at USC's Institute for Families in Society is a leader in health services research. She has spent the past 20 years leading state-level and nationally funded research initiatives dedicated to exploring the links between health, health service delivery systems and well-being. Her interdisciplinary research is designed to translate research into policy and practice and to improve health outcomes and reduce health disparities. The results of her research have led to the creation of a Medicaid waiver to more effectively meet the service delivery needs of children with medically complex conditions; advancing supportive services in tuberculosis treatment and prevention; facilitating innovative strategies to meet the needs of people dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid; offering research in support of policies to enhance birth outcomes; improving transparency in Medicaid health services data; and informing strategies to improve quality and delivery of pediatric care.
With an emphasis on the social and cultural determinants of health, Lòpez-De Fede is conducting pioneering work in the application of geospatial analytic methods to examine health disparities related to chronic disease and access to care. This work includes developing new research methods focused on "health and place" to predict chronic disease burden and to target health care resources. Her research is critical to advancing policy and practice, not only in South Carolina, but throughout the nation, to reform health care and health service systems that can lead to improved health outcomes and reduced health disparities for vulnerable populations.
National recognition for her contributions in the area of health services include the 2013 Charles DeGraw Advocacy Award and nomination for the 2013 White House Champion of Change for Public Health and Prevention.
Dr. Renata Serricchio Leite is an assistant professor at the James B. Edwards College of Dental Medicine (CDM) at the Medical University of South Carolina, where she also is the co-director of The Center for Oral Health Research’s Clinical Core. The only community-based participatory researcher (CBPR) in her division, Leite has training as a basic scientist and periodontist. Her research agenda shifted from clinical applications to health disparities using CBPR when she observed the impact of periodontal disease on Gullah populations with diabetes. The oral health inequities she observed from 2007-10 as a junior investigator in the MUSC College of Dental Medicine's Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) served as a catalyst for re-evaluating her professional purpose.
Leite has developed an intervention research program to ameliorate oral health disparities experienced by residents of the barrier sea island communities of South Carolina. Since 2009, she has served as an investigator on five NIH grants, including one for which she was the PI and used CBPR to address unmet oral health needs in Hollywood, S.C.
Her research has resulted in numerous scholarly presentations and publications. However, the greatest evidence of her success may be in the transformation that has occurred within the Hollywood community. During the current legislative session, the Town of Hollywood’s mayor and other community leaders were successful in obtaining funds from the S.C. General Assembly (approximately $120,000) to equip a dental clinic for uninsured and underserved members of their community.
Rozalynn Goodwin is vice president for community engagement for the S.C. Hospital Association. In this role, she has worked tirelessly to promote increased access to health care by promoting the health insurance enrollment options, limited as they are, made available to South Carolinians through the Affordable Care Act. She is a graduate of Leadership Columbia, serves on the board of United Way of the Midlands, and has served on the boards of N.C. Prevention Partners, the S.C. Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy and Lander University Alumni Association. A fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives, Rozalynn is an elder at her church, Right Direction Church International, and has been recognized as a rising business leader in The State Newspaper’s annual “20 under 40” feature.
Tiffany Sullivan is the director of the Office of Community Services at Palmetto Health. Sullivan earned a master's degree in health administration from the Arnold School and has worked in public health education and prevention for Palmetto Health ever since. From a part-time health administration student intern to director of the Office of Community Health, Sullivan is known by her colleagues as a hardworking and ambitious Tier-0ne leader. Her enthusiasm for her job is driven by a genuine desire to serve the underserved and to provide an opportunity for all people to live stronger, healthier lives. She has worked with her team to create some of Palmetto Health’s most successful community-based physical activity and healthy lifestyle programs. Outside of daily job duties, she also extends her service to the community by working with numerous health initiatives to include Crossroads Middle School’s Improvement Council and LiveWell Columbia.
