_01.jpg)
_02.jpg)
Exemplary health education efforts lauded by SCAAHE
Dr. Lillian Smith is recipient of the 2013 Outstanding Contribution to Health Education Award.
December 11, 2013
The South Carolina Association for the Advancement of Health Education (SCAAHE) has awarded Lillian Smith, DrPH, MPH, with the 2013 Outstanding Contribution to Health Education Award.
Smith was nominated for the award because of her exemplary health education efforts at state and local levels.
Smith is a clinical associate professor at the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public Health, where she also serves as the director for the Office of Public Health Practice. As the director for the South Carolina Public Health Consortium and the South Carolina Public Health Training Center (SC PHTC) as well, Smith plays a vital role in impacting health education for South Carolina.
At an individual level, Smith mentors and teaches students by helping them find linkages among their academic and practical interests. Through her work with the Consortium and SC PHTC, she established an infrastructure for strengthening the core competencies of the current and future public health workforce with continuing education courses and certificates, online learning communities, and an opportunity matching tool. This matching tool, the Opportunity Manager, links students with learning experiences in practice settings and connects professionals who have common research or evaluation interests.
Smith has assured access of these learning resources to rural and underserved populations throughout the state by making them available through an online portal: MySPH.org. My Source for Public Health serves as a clearing house for public health information and tools, providing SC practitioners, researchers, professors and students with their own custom resource.
According to her nominators, who clamored to voice their support, Smith is a visionary at identifying potential partnerships among public health stakeholders. They credit this skill, along with her dedication to public health as a whole, for her ability to make such an immense impact on her state. These are characteristics, no doubt, that will enable Smith to continue to advance health education for South Carolina in the future.
Learn more about Dr. Smith (http://sph.sc.edu/ophp/profile.asp?id=424), MySPH (mysph.org) or SCAAHE (http://www.scahperd.org/SCAAHE.html).
