Dr. Jo Anne Earp, a champion of health and social justice, died in November 2022. Her legacy lives on in her research, mentorship and advocacy to eliminate racial health inequity.
Public health lost a fierce champion for equity and justice when Jo Anne Earp, ScD, died in November 2022.
Earp was a nationally recognized researcher and academic leader who, during her 50-year career, was committed to eliminating racial health disparities through the power of community advocacy. She led the Gillings School’s Department of Health Behavior for 13 years, and her years as an activist in the civil rights movement informed the research questions she asked, the interventions she developed and tested, and her approach to developing the talents of generations of faculty and students in health behavior.
Hundreds of students and colleagues called her friend and mentor, reflecting Earp’s commitment to fostering cooperation, building bridges and elevating voices from underrepresented groups. Because of that mentorship, her influence will endure for generations — in the halls of the Gillings School, in the pages of research journals, on the front lines of public health practice and in the gathering spaces of community allies.
“As a medical sociologist, she studied social networks and the influence certain individuals in those networks could have in communities,” said Elizabeth French, MA, associate dean for strategic initiatives. Through rigorous survey and mixed methods research, Earp identified ways that boundary spanners — people able to move fluidly across different cultures, communities, educations and more — could be formally engaged as trusted sources of health information, thereby connecting people to critically important health resources.
Using this approach, she co-founded the North Carolina Breast Cancer Screening Program, which was able to overcome longstanding medical mistrust and breast cancer stigma to close gaps in mammography rates among Black women in eastern N.C.
“If someone had the odds stacked against them, she would remove every barrier she could to create opportunities for them.”
— Kurt Ribisl, PhD
“She was ahead of her time in promoting health equity and social justice,” said Kurt Ribisl, PhD, who is chair of health behavior and holds a distinguished professorship that bears Earp’s name. “And she was a relentless, scrappy advocate for ideas that were important for faculty and students. If someone had the odds stacked against them, she would remove every barrier she could to create opportunities for them.”
Many mentees, who knew her as JAE, are now formidable public health researchers and leaders themselves, demonstrating the exponential influence of her values and the high-quality work she promoted.
“JAE encouraged, dare I say, drove me to publish my master’s paper, which was a policy analysis of what could be done to help older adults in Durham, N.C., who were struggling to pay for and manage their medications,” recalled Gina Upchurch, MPH, adjunct assistant professor of pharmacy and health behavior and executive director of Senior PharmAssist. “That publication was noticed by leaders at The Duke Endowment, and Senior PharmAssist opened its doors in 1994. JAE’s engaging me as adjunct faculty, especially with patient advocacy work and as a mentor myself, has ensured that my work is grounded in public health principles.”
“I doubt the School ever has known a more dedicated and effective mentor.”
— Dean Emerita Barbara K. Rimer, DrPH, MPH
“I doubt the School ever has known a more dedicated and effective mentor,” seconded Dean Emerita Barbara K. Rimer, DrPH, MPH. “To have been ‘Earped’ was to have had one’s papers subjected to her purple pen, thereby joining a special group that resulted in leaps of quality. I counted on Jo Anne’s candid feedback and thoughtful observations about my performance as dean, and I will be forever grateful for how she made me better.”
Melissa Gilkey, PhD, associate professor of health behavior, fondly recalled Earp’s “encyclopedic” knowledge of mentees, from work to families to assorted trivia about personal histories and preferences. “Whenever I had big news about my career, Jo Anne was the person I wanted to share it with first because she could see the big picture, understand the implications and ask the hard questions that would help me clarify next steps,” she said. “Her delight in my successes and concern for my challenges meant so much because she really knew me.”
“Whenever I had big news about my career, Jo Anne was the person I wanted to share it with first ...”
— Melissa Gilkey, PhD
“I see her influence everywhere,” said Adina Kalet, MD, MPH, director of the Kern Institute at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Gillings School epidemiology alumna. “She gave me the confidence and key skills to launch an academic career I did not know I could have, raised the possibility of working with purpose and lead ‘with people,’ not ‘over them.’ She made a career in public health and health services research seem imbued with meaning and purpose.”
At Carolina and beyond, she was so well loved that her retirement party, dubbed “Earpfest,” drew hundreds to celebrate her legacy, which only grew in the 10 years that followed. That love also led to a scholarship and a distinguished professorship in her name.
Though Earp retired in 2013, her work in public health never truly ended. Even in the weeks up to her passing, she made time to check in and spent hours sharing strategies or celebrating successes.
“Those are things I really miss today,” Ribisl said. “And I try to build on that legacy and reflect on her process in my leadership.”
“We are who we are in part because of our reflection in others’ eyes,” Upchurch said. “With JAE gone from this time and place, many of us may feel smaller in some way. However, I hear her loud and clear, that we don’t have time for such nonsense, as things aren’t right, and we need to get on it!”
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Donations in Earp’s memory may be made in support of the Jo Anne Earp Scholarship Fund in Health Behavior and Health Education or the Jo Anne Earp Distinguished Professorship in Health Behavior). Make checks payable to the “UNC-CH Public Health Foundation” and mail to UNC-Chapel Hill, P.O. Box 309, Chapel Hill, NC 27514. (Please write “In memory of Jo Anne Earp” in the memo line and note if the gift is for the scholarship or professorship.) You may also donate at go.unc.edu/JEarp.
