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Clinics

Primary care and addiction medicine clinics have the capacity to provide comprehensive medication assisted treatment (MAT) with medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), mental health services, peer groups, trauma therapy and community outreach. Opioid treatment programs are specialized addiction medicine clinics that provide methadone treatment to individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD). Depending on the individual and setting, methadone, buprenorphine, naloxone and naltrexone are the most effective MOUD therapies, alone or in combination.

Schools

‍Awareness campaigns available for fifth graders and older on the dangers associated with substance use. Schools have access to health behavior specialists and counselors who work on preventative methods, such as mental health education, awareness and support for all students.

Libraries

‍Libraries offer a variety of resources for those impacted by OUD, including information regarding recovery clinics and potential support groups. Those who would like to access these resources can ask a librarian for more information or find it on the library’s website. Libraries also provide a safe sheltered space to the public for free. Within this space, people can also access free and safe activities and materials, such as books, magazines and movies.

Health Departments

‍Local health departments (LHDs) have services for opioid treatment, including naloxone distribution, health fairs and educational workshops, and other community resources. Some also provide direct OUD treatment. They play a central role in convening multi-sector coalitions to address public health issues like OUD. Every LHD offers different services, so reach out to yours to see what they provide.

Community-based Organizations (CBOs)

‍CBOs offer a varying range of services to individuals with OUD or activities to prevent OUD, including harm reduction-related activities. Many CBOs engage with community members to better understand the needs of individuals with OUD. Others lead the way in developing peer support specialists to walk alongside OUD treatment and recovery journeys. CBOs also provide essential resources to address associated social drivers of health and substance use.

First Responders

‍Emergency medical services and law enforcement officers often serve as front-line responders in moments of crisis around OUD. They carry naloxone and are trained to use it. Some law enforcement officers provide training and resources to local organizations, which can help more people prevent overdose deaths. First responders have a critical role in linking individuals they encounter with OUD to the care they need.

Local Government

‍Local government administration — led by the elected Board of County Commissioners at the county level or the elected City Council at the municipal level — can coordinate activities across public sector organizations, including health departments, school districts and police departments. County commissioners serve as a primary distributor of funds received in the N.C. Opioid Settlement with major drug manufacturers. This funding will be used for opioid prevention and treatment programs, including recovery support services, housing services, and job training and job skills programs. When determining the use of these funds, local elected officials should work with community members, others in local government and private agencies to collectively determine which strategies will be most effective at combating the epidemic.

This is the culmination of years of research and advocacy on the part of policy and public health experts, including a team of UNC-Chapel Hill researchers.

Kurt Ribisl, PhD, the Jo Anne Earp Distinguished Professor and chair of the Gillings School’s Department of Health Behavior, has been a driving force in this research.

Ribisl began researching tobacco control in the mid-1990s. Over the years, his research portfolio has focused on illegal tobacco sales to minors and the sales and marketing of tobacco products at stores.

When North Carolina became the first state to bring a lawsuit against Juul Labs for marketing its e-cigarettes to minors, Ribisl served as an expert witness in the case. He produced an expert report about Juul Labs’ marketing and sales practices and their lack of age verification.

"Policy is the most powerful lever we can pull to reduce tobacco use. The greatest successes we’ve had have come through policy changes to increase taxes on tobacco products, reduce exposure to secondhand smoke through clean indoor air laws, and restrict marketing practices and flavor usage.

Ribisl read more than 15,000 Juul Labs documents to compile the report, including internal emails, reports to investors and discussions among the company’s founders. These documents revealed staggering evidence against Juul Labs and led to the company settling with the state before the case went to trial.

As a part of the settlement, N.C. Attorney General Josh Stein negotiated to require Juul Labs to publicly disclose their internal emails, reports to investors and strategy documents. To date, one million documents have been added to an online depository co-managed by UNC-Chapel Hill’s University Libraries and the University of California, San Francisco, with more documents being added regularly. Anyone can now search the depository and learn how the company targeted youth. This visibility into Juul Labs’ tactics will help ensure that other companies cannot use the same playbook.

Among the documented issues was the fact that Juul Labs actively engaged in social media marketing despite knowing a large portion of their social media followers were underage. The company worked with influencers and celebrities, some of whom were underage, who were popular among youth. Juul Labs had also studied which flavors appeal to youth, and many of those flavors, including Fruit Medley, Mango and Mint, were used in their vape products. Similarly, they took steps to make their products more appealing to minors by offering them in the same popular colors that were available for iPhones.

The report also demonstrated that when the company became aware of stores selling Juul products to minors, it did little to prevent these sales. Even when stores were repeatedly found to sell to kids, Juul Labs didn’t significantly punish them or cut off the supply of JUUL devices or refillable pods.

Policies that regulate tobacco marketing and sales practices and the enforcement of these policies are crucially important to reduce tobacco use and the associated health risks among minors.

“Policy is the most powerful lever we can pull to reduce tobacco use,” said Ribisl, who is also the program leader for Cancer Prevention and Control at the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. “The greatest successes we’ve had have come through policy changes to increase taxes on tobacco products, reduce exposure to secondhand smoke through clean indoor air laws, and restrict marketing practices and flavor usage.”

Policy change doesn’t happen quickly or easily, though. A large team of Carolina researchers has worked tirelessly to collect evidence that reinforces the need for tighter tobacco regulations. The team includes:

• Noel Brewer, PhD, the Gillings Distinguished Professor in Public Health and professor in the Department of Health Behavior, researches the effects of warning labels on vapes and other tobacco products.
• ‍Shelley Golden, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Health Behavior, leads work on how public policies and neighborhood characteristics influence individual health behaviors and how changing retail market conditions affect tobacco use. She also studies the impact of taxes and prices on tobacco use.
• ‍Sarah Mills, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Health Behavior, has conducted in-depth research on the impact of menthol bans and the disproportionate amount of advertising for menthol cigarettes in Black communities.
• ‍Seth Noar, PhD, the Howard & McLean Parker Distinguished Professor in the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media, is focused on cancer prevention via tobacco control health communications.  

Despite making significant strides over the past few decades, tobacco-related health issues remain a major public health concern. Gillings School researchers continue to investigate the most effective tobacco control strategies and remain committed to partnering with policymakers to curb tobacco use and save lives.

Reports from the United States and abroad have all cautioned that without swift change to reduce our fossil fuel dependence, our world will continue to see worsening temperatures, rising sea levels, extreme weather, poor air quality and other harmful effects from climate change.

But even with this knowledge, these non-renewable sources of energy still make up most of what we use to heat homes, power electricity and fuel cars across the planet. Policy has been one of the major drivers in changing our economic dependence on fossil fuels, but not all policy-driven approaches have the same impact.

“For a long time, environmental policy has been shaped by this idea that the most effective way to create change is to penalize polluters,” said Noah Kittner, PhD, assistant professor of environmental sciences and engineering at the Gillings School, “but things like carbon taxes haven’t really gained public support in the U.S.”

Companies that provide energy in the U.S. have struggled to transition to cleaner and renewable sources, in part because systems of energy generation that rely on fossil fuels are deeply entrenched in our power grid and in the business of providing energy.

Renewable technologies like wind and solar are viable alternatives for generation, but the sun isn’t always shining, and the wind isn’t always blowing, which makes batteries a cornerstone for effective implementation. Kittner focuses his research on the ways that we can develop and incentivize the adoption of batteries and alternative energy technologies that are viable, reliable and — importantly — cost effective for consumers and the utility companies that serve them.

Right now, those technologies are still expensive to adopt. Part of Kittner’s work involves examining how policies like the recent Inflation Reduction Act use tax incentives instead of penalties to support alternative energy innovation and adoption. For consumers, that might mean getting a tax credit to install a more efficient heating pump or buy an electric vehicle. For utilities, this might mean using tax investments to adopt solar technology for generation in addition to traditional technology instead of being forced to phase out fossil fuels altogether.

Both federal and state policy incentives have helped North Carolina grow its solar energy capacity to one of the largest in the country. Without further policy incentives, solar could become a less profitable option for utilities compared to other sources of energy that increase carbon emissions, and consumers will inevitably bear the cost burden.

“Most people understand that climate change is making energy more expensive because they see it reflected in the higher bills that come from using more air conditioning or heating,” Kittner explained. “If we really want use cleaner energy options to address these concerns, then we need better energy storage on top of energy efficient appliances and solar panels that can be added to the existing grid. And part of that involves looking at the policies that make these more affordable, because it does no good if all these solutions are only available for the wealthy.”

In addition to economic inequities, climate change could also deepen place-based inequities, especially for those living in parts of the U.S. that are most vulnerable to severe weather, flooding or poor air quality. Kittner says that policy incentives that encourage the use of batteries for energy storage can improve power grid resilience, leading to fewer blackouts and quicker response times during hurricanes, heat waves and other extreme events.

When most people think “battery,” they probably think about lithium-ion batteries, which are common in many electric vehicles, but Kittner’s research has found that even a fleet of electric school buses or delivery vehicles, when connected together, could serve as a battery to power a grid.

“For a long time, it’s been cost-prohibitive to just store electricity at every given moment, but now there are new options to use to try to avoid outages or other issues,” he said.

Renewable energy is a growing industry that policy can both support and regulate, which is why Kittner says it’s important for the public to get a big-picture perspective on the ways that policy shapes the entire energy system — not just the ones in their own households. The future holds promise for renewable energy technology, but development of these technologies is just the start. When we understand how energy affects the everyday lives of others, it gives us a broader picture of the policies that can support change to make our systems more sustainable and cost-effective and support a healthier environment for all.

Amma Agyemang-Duah

Master of Public Health second-year student in Maternal, Child and Family Health

In the fall of 2023, a family sued the dining chain Panera because their daughter died from cardiac arrest in the restaurant after consuming their “Charged Lemonade.” The drink contains 390 mg of caffeine and is also included in their “Unlimited Sip Club.” Despite the drink’s name, consumers don’t necessarily realize it contains more caffeine than most energy drinks, such as Monster and Bang. That is not the image associated with Panera.

In the spring of 2024, a TikTok influencer described a drink purchased at a gas station that is for consumers ages 21 and up but is not alcohol or marijuana. The drink contained kratom, an herbal substance with “opioid-like” effects. The video cautions others to carefully read the ingredients in items they are consuming. The company that produces the drink posted a video attempting to discredit the claims that the drink is harmful by focusing on the natural ingredients used in the drink; the video has since been deleted. Currently, kratom is not controlled under the Controlled Substances Act, but the Drug Enforcement Administration has listed kratom as a drug and chemical of concern.

Intentionally misleading and manipulative marketing can lead vulnerable audiences into making uninformed purchases and make these potentially dangerous drinks appear more benign than they are. Stronger regulations regarding drink marketing should be in place, especially considering that target audiences for these drinks are typically adolescents and young adults. Even drinks that are marketed for consumers over age 21 can create underage drinking risks, such as Sunny D Vodka Seltzer, which leverages the brand name of a popular children’s drink.

With more stringent marketing regulations, consumers are better equipped to make informed decisions. Many preventable deaths and accidents can be avoided with these regulations in place.

Ethan Chupp

Master of Public Health first-year student in Applied Epidemiology

The opioid crisis has devastated the United States over the past 25 years. Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died since the epidemic began, first from prescription opioids, then from heroin, and most recently from fentanyl and other synthetic substances. But a new wave of the crisis threatens to make things even worse.

Xylazine, a synthetic veterinary tranquilizer, has emerged in the drug supply — first in Puerto Rico, then in Philadelphia and other northeastern cities. Xylazine has since been spreading across the U.S. The estimated number of deaths in the U.S. involving xylazine grew more than 12 times between 2018 and 2021. But the true scale of the crisis is not known. Xylazine is not a controlled substance, and many toxicology labs do not test for it.

Xylazine presents severe health risks. Its misuse can lead to slowed breathing, drops in blood pressure and death. Xylazine also causes skin ulcers when injected, which can lead to abscesses, cellulitis and infection. Xylazine is not an opioid, but it is almost always mixed with opioids, intensifying the risk of overdose.

Beyond that, our best tools for saving lives do not work for xylazine overdoses. Naloxone, or Narcan, is a medicine that reverses the effects of opioids and restores breathing during an overdose. First responders and federal agencies recognize its life-saving capacity. However, because xylazine is not an opioid, naloxone cannot reverse an overdose. Worse yet, xylazine use disorder could be harder to treat than opioids, as the medications methadone and buprenorphine may be ineffective. Furthermore, xylazine withdrawal may be more severe than from opioids, making quitting extremely difficult.  

The time is now. As the substance use crisis continues to evolve, we need new tools to protect the health of the public. Action on xylazine now could save countless lives.

Rachel Morrow

Master of Public Health second-year student in Maternal, Child and Family Health

There are many ways to improve individual health, from nutrition to exercise to vaccination to cancer screenings. However, one way that many people don’t think about supporting their individual health is through voting. Voting gives citizens a voice in policies that will affect their health and the health of those around them. Research shows that our communities are healthier when more voters can participate in the democratic process.  

I recently learned about the organization Vot-ER, which develops nonpartisan civic engagement tools and programs for every corner of the health care system. They supply health care providers with tools, such as voter registration lanyards and conversation starters, which allows them to serve as a resource for anyone looking to get engaged with the democratic process and encourages patients to advocate for their health.  

Health care settings are great places where people are already thinking about the importance of health and health policy and therefore can serve as a convenient place to encourage people to register to vote. In practice, using Vot-ER as a resource might look like providers at UNC Hospital wearing an additional lanyard with a QR code for patients to scan to register to vote or providers asking a patient if they are registered to vote as they ask about other behaviors, such as smoking.

Health care providers in hospitals, outpatient clinics and local health departments should consider using Vot-ER tools to add another angle to best support their patients and communities.

However, while Vot-ER is doing essential work, we don’t necessarily need a non-profit to provide this service alone. I urge policymakers to create more accessible voting registration to work alongside other voting advocacy organizations to make voting more accessible. The time is now!

Shriti Pant

Master of Public Health first-year student in Maternal, Child and Family Health

Access to maternal health care is crucial for promoting the health and well-being of children and birthing individuals across the U.S. As indicated by a 2022 report from March of Dimes, 36% of counties in the country are categorized as maternity care deserts. This surge in maternity care deserts has resulted in a decline in available obstetric services in these areas, exposing approximately 6.9 million women of childbearing age to higher risks of mortality and morbidity before, during and after pregnancy.

Maternity care deserts are areas without birthing centers, obstetricians or hospitals that are equipped to provide essential support throughout the pregnancy journey. Residents of these care deserts also face limited or non-existent access to midwifery care, doula services, lactation consultants and family care providers. Such deserts are particularly prevalent in geographically isolated and rural communities, where obstacles such as transportation limitations, communication challenges with health care providers, and insufficient community education on maternal and child health delay or impede access to care.

The U.S. has the highest maternal mortality rate among developed countries globally. With the rise of maternity care deserts, it has become crucial for policymakers to prioritize maternal health care in 2024. This need for care disproportionately impacts rural communities and individuals of color. Previous studies have revealed that one in four Native American babies and one in six Black babies are born in maternity care deserts nationwide, highlighting the systemic disparities in maternal health care that contribute to the alarming maternal mortality rates. Addressing this public health crisis is essential for advancing the health of birthing people across the nation and decreasing maternal and child mortality caused by maternity care deserts.

There is a nationwide need to improve access to quality health care and education to ensure the well-being of all birthing individuals and the growth and development of all children. By prioritizing increasing access to maternal care services in rural communities, policymakers can take the necessary steps toward deconstructing systemic inequities and fostering healthier outcomes for families.

Addressing Adolescent Hypertension

‍Shakia Hardy, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology, is focused on early intervention to prevent health inequities. Disparities appear early in life, with Black adolescents already facing increased cardiovascular risk factors compared to their peers. Hardy first encountered these issues while working as a health and nutrition specialist for a HeadStart program in rural eastern N.C.

“This experience made me acutely aware of how early in the life course low socioeconomic and minority populations can develop cardiovascular risk factors,” said Hardy. “I became passionate about investigating and intervening on the reasons why this occurred.”

Today her research efforts focus on the social and behavioral determinants of hypertension and cardiovascular disease across the life course and evaluating interventions that can increase health equity. She serves as co-principal investigator of the EPIPHANY study, which is a large randomized trial that seeks to prevent hypertension among Black adults.

Hardy also has a career development award from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute to develop and pilot test a peer support intervention to lower blood pressure among rural, Black adolescents in the Southeast. Coming from a rural community herself, Hardy is very passionate about rural health. She is currently doing formative work to tailor this intervention to the rural environment.

Improving Health for Black Men

‍Despite being more socially advantaged, men have a lower healthy life expectancy compared to women. This is largely due to differences in social norms, expectations and support across health behaviors, preventative screening and medical treatment between men and women. The outcomes get even bleaker among minority groups and men who are socioeconomically disadvantaged.

Samuel Baxter, PhD, assistant professor of health policy and management, studies men’s health with a focus on health inequities affecting Black men. He also studies cardiovascular disease prevention, the determinants of cardiovascular disparities and place-based health disparities.

Baxter takes an asset-based approach to identify which resources are available in a community and how they can be leveraged to improve cardiovascular health. He also studies place-based determinants of health, and in the future he hopes to conduct research with rural communities in eastern N.C.

“In public health, we often talk about how health inequities are unjust, which is true. But it’s also important to remember that they can be changed,” said Baxter. “My research focuses on how we can change health inequities among men while ensuring our interventions don’t negatively impact the health of women or other socially defined groups. I center Black men’s health in my work because they live through structural forces that increase their risk for cardiovascular disease and premature death.”

Baxter is part of the UNC Men’s Health Program, which is based in the UNC School of Medicine. The group is preparing the 2024 N.C. Men’s Health Report Card, which is designed to be a helpful tool in conversations with the public, practitioners, researchers, health systems and the state legislature on improving men’s health.

Promoting Physical Activity Through Policy

Natalicio Serrano, PhD, assistant professor of health behavior, is focused on creating equitable and sustainable environment and policy strategies for physical activity promotion and chronic disease prevention. His research is particularly interested in understanding and addressing issues related to neighborhood development, racial and economic segregation, gentrification, and displacement.

Serrano has been interested in this research area since growing up in an under-resourced community and losing many family members to chronic disease.

Serrano just received a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Grant to study the impact of neighborhood development on physical activity in Latino and Black communities. The study is still in the planning stages, but research will evaluate the impact and implementation of development on certain neighborhoods in Chapel Hill and Durham. It will involve interviewing a number of key stakeholders that include residents in historic neighborhoods, community advocacy groups, representatives from government organizations like the Departments of Transportation and Housing, and researchers who have studied the impact of community development on existing neighborhoods.  

“Policy has a huge impact on our lives and our health, so public health leaders have to engage with and disseminate information to policymakers,” said Serrano. “As we communicate with policymakers, it’s also really important that we’re making the necessary connections. For example, with my work many lawmakers may not care about whether or not people in a community are physically active, but if I can show them that policies that improve physical activity within a community also bring economic benefits to the community, that is an important connection to make.”

My name is Leeann Ji, and I am a second-year Master of Public Health (MPH) student at the Gillings School. I’m in the Global Health concentration and plan to graduate in Spring 2024. This past summer, I completed an MPH practicum with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s Region Office of Asia and Pacific (FAORAP) in Bangkok, Thailand. It gave me the opportunity, as a student, to work directly with multiple governments on regional responses to critical issues at the intersection of water, food and health.

Though my career began in financial services, I switched to public health to chase my true passion of feeding people.

As an undergraduate, I studied international affairs and conflict resolution with the goal of working in diplomacy and humanitarian response. It wasn’t until junior year, when I began volunteering at George Washington University’s urban garden that I became deeply interested in food systems.

I particularly want to help ensure people have access to food by improving the sustainability of food systems in places made vulnerable by climate change.

For my practicum, I worked FAORAP’s water team to respond to three main issues: water scarcity in Southeast Asia; collaboration among the water, sanitation and hygiene and agricultural sectors of Pacific island states; and pollution of the ocean from agriculture — primarily from runoff containing fertilizers. I also published a policy report on the importance of gender equality, disability and social inclusion policies in water management projects.

This practicum gave me the opportunity to work on projects for the People’s Republic of China, Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR), Indonesia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Timor-Leste. I also got to travel to Vietnam and Cambodia and eat a lot of extremely delicious (and spicy) foods!

My family is from China, and I have spent a significant amount of time in East Asian mega-cities; but nothing could have prepared me for the experience of day-to-day life in Bangkok, an incredibly cosmopolitan city mixing skyscrapers and megamalls with grand Buddhist temples and palaces.

I attended workshops on water accounting and allocation alongside staff of national ministries for hydropower, environment and water in Vietnam, Lao PDR, Thailand and Cambodia. Seeing these government officials engage with each other and invest time into learning new water management strategies was exciting; it felt like my undergraduate diplomacy and foreign policy dreams were coming true!

On a team made up of climate experts, oceanographers, environmental advocates and academics from different countries, I was the only team member with public health experience. Our projects focused on systems and upstream drivers of food insecurity like water scarcity and pollution, allowing me to tap into foundational MPH knowledge.

The type of work we were doing has historically suffered from a siloed approach with efforts split among the academic, government and private sectors. The “One Health” approach — which recognizes the connections between the health of people, animals, plants and the environment — has increasingly tied together work related to public health, water and food systems.

I came to UNC knowing I wanted to do a practicum with FAO, and I found this opportunity by cold emailing people at FAO’s Bangkok office. Gillings School faculty members, especially within the Water Institute, provided input on what experiences to highlight in interviews and what to expect from the process. I had a lot of financial support, from both the Gillings School and the Carolina Asia Center’s Bringing Southeast Asia Home initiative, that made my practicum possible.

One of my favorite courses at the Gillings School has been Dr. Jason West’s “Global Climate Change: Interdisciplinary Perspectives,” which brought in experts to speak to our class about various climate change-related topics. This prepared me for my FAO project on ocean hypoxia and eutrophication from agricultural pollution. Additionally, the “Cultural Humility” course that all first-year global health students take really shifted my perspectives on global public health work.

For anyone considering a public health degree, even if their interests are not explicitly or traditionally public health focused, I would encourage them to take the leap. The MPH has helped me develop valuable research and critical thinking skills that make me a unique and competitive candidate in policy-oriented spaces.

Note: Gillings students are responsible for securing their own practicum experiences.

The North Carolina Institute for Public Health (NCIPH) at the Gillings School supports the public health workforce by offering workforce development, and community assessment and strategy services to practitioners in North Carolina in everything from leadership skills to equity and inclusion. Ki’yonna Jones, MBA, MHA, a senior training associate at NCIPH, works to develop and deliver these programs, which she says are designed to help the workforce meet 21st century challenges and become effective leaders and partners in public health.

“The public health workforce encompasses so many people,” she said. “From health directors, community health workers, water plant operators, social workers — the list goes on and on!” So, it’s important for all these collaborators to have a public health mindset. Now, more than ever, the ability to think at a systems level and strategically leverage relationships and resources to tackle challenges and health inequities communities face is critical. Public health workers who know how to lead and communicate the significance of public health initiatives at every level moves the change forward.

“We’ve come to expect clean air and clean water when we walk out of the house, but that doesn’t come naturally. This isn’t magic; it takes a whole workforce of people who care and who strengthen the social determinants of our health.”

This mindset is one that approaches health from a population-based perspective, understanding that these connections work together to promote health at a systems level that is often called “ecological.” This means that individual behaviors are only one facet of our health. Policies, cultures, communities and institutions all have a role to play as well.

Through her work at NCIPH, Jones and colleagues offer members of the workforce continuing education opportunities to strengthen their foundational skills and develop that public health mindset,

The benefits, Jones says, grow exponentially with each additional practitioner who receives training—it’s the ripple effect.

“When we have more people who know what it means to live in a healthy environment, they pass that knowledge along to others,” she explained. “We’ve come to expect clean air and clean water when we walk out of the house, but that doesn’t come naturally. This isn’t magic; it takes a whole workforce of people who care and who strengthen the social determinants of our health.”

Jones, who has master’s degrees in health care administration and business administration from Pfeiffer University, said her original plan was to pursue a career in hospital administration or community development. But like many people who work in public health, she says she fell in love with it once she saw it in action. For Jones, this happened while coaching a state team through a complex challenge at a “Learning Journey” experience with the National Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Workforce Development Center, which is housed in the Gillings School.

“I realized I want to be connected to the people who were doing the work. I want to learn their context and partner by sharing cross-cutting tools and offering resources that will help impact the world around them,” she said. “It felt like this was the level where real change happened.”

Jones has been with NCIPH since 2018, where she also works with UNC’s Injury Prevention Research Center (IPRC) on the Vision Zero leadership institute to reduce traffic injuries and fatalities. It’s a wide scope of work where new connections are always being uncovered. She enjoys being able to see public health from many different sides, ranging from the national, state and local levels, and loves connecting with practitioners through coaching where they wrestle with uncertainties, discover fresh perspectives and reflect on how their leadership impacts the change they want to see.

“When people come back to us and describe how components of a course, tool or training helped them to advance adaptive and technical challenges in their organization,” she explained, “or say things like, ‘In review of our budgets, I found opportunities to more equitably distributed resources’ — that’s what makes this job worth it.”

Because NCIPH provides state-wide training, staff members can be found in many parts of N.C. Jones is currently located in Charlotte, where she lives with her spouse and two sons. In her free time, she loves to explore the local food scene or travel.

The demands of an academic program can place significant stress on students, which is why leadership at the Gillings School, including the Mental Health and Well-being Task Force and student-led groups like the Minority Student Caucus and the Student Government Association, have been exploring new opportunities to promote well-being. Edouard, who is the student affairs events manager, has been at the forefront of planning and implementing programs that meet some of these student needs and provide resources, relaxation and camaraderie to the Gillings School community.

“We hear from students through feedback and event surveys and use their comments to implement projects and the programs that we think are going to best help them based on their current needs,” she explained. “For example, our ‘Well-Being Wednesdays’ events used to be virtual events during the pandemic called ‘Wind-Down Wednesdays.’ It was a place for everyone to come together and just unwind and talk with their peers. Now we have transitioned that over to ‘Well-Being Wednesdays’, where we try to have various in-person events that are social programming but with an emphasis on wellness. It might be a DIY trail mix bar or someone coming in to teach about Enneagram. We try to keep it relevant to whatever the students need.”

We hear from students through feedback and event surveys and use their comments to implement projects and the programs that we think are going to best help them based on their current needs.

In addition to social and well-being events, Edouard and her colleagues in Student Affairs manage the logistics of many marquee academic events, including Fall and Spring commencement, Admitted Students Day, open houses, orientation, and so much more. The slate keeps the team busy throughout the year, but for Edouard, whose background is in hospitality and corporate events management, every event is an opportunity to explore new social and emotional programming that can forge connections between students.

One Gillings School event that sticks out to her is the 2023 Fall Social, where she says students came out in droves to celebrate the beginning of the semester.

“They want an opportunity to be able to gather and talk and tell everybody what they’ve done for the summer,” Edouard said. “It really speaks to the fact that social programming is important.”

“Tiffany works diligently to make sure our students are engaged in events that support their well-being,” said Charletta Sims Evans, MEd, associate dean for student affairs. “She creates events that are fun and beneficial. She has been an asset to our team and School, and her background and certification as Mental Health First Aid instructor is a plus as well.”

Edouard has been in event planning for more than a decade and came to the Gillings School two years ago by way of the UNC School of Social Work. Before joining UNC, she spent many years in the business world as an event planner — including owning her own event planning company — and says the jump from the private sector to the public sector has allowed her to enjoy new and different aspects of the process.

“Corporate events can be a little bit more cut and dry, but social events at the School are a lot more fun,” she said. “It’s not just about the run of show or the program that you’re putting on; it’s also about the lunch that you’re having, the decorations that are there or the music. You get to interact with students and build relationships. Whereas with general corporate events, I don’t necessarily get to build relationships with the client other than our vendors. But in a setting like the Gillings School, you get to see the students who come back to every single event or the departments that are heavily involved on campus. You get to build those relationships with those frequent fliers.”

In her personal life, Edouard loves spending time with her sister and godchildren. She is a fan of musical theater and an avid reader of non-fiction. Her number one book recommendation is A Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer. Though she is a graduate of the University of Florida, she has spent most of her professional career in North Carolina, and her first job as a corporate event planner for Blue Cross and Blue Shield even allowed her to work in all 100 N.C. counties.

She says the transition to higher education has been a fulfilling one, and she loves the team in Student Affairs.

“Working here made me realize there’s a space for any profession on a college campus,” she said. “And the work of the student affairs office is so embedded in the day-to-day at Gillings that it can be easy to forget we’re there. Our work is done to enrich the student experience, and that’s really invaluable for the Gillings School.”

What’s your role in public health?

I am the founder and CEO of Pillar Consulting, a global research consulting firm headquartered in Durham. For the past ten years, we’ve partnered with nonprofit, academic, corporate and philanthropic organizations to provide consultation on the development, implementation, evaluation and dissemination of their efforts.

Our work is rooted in equity, and we offer a portfolio of services including contract management, needs assessments, equity audits, employee surveys and membership surveys.

I currently serve as the co-chair of the Health and Human Services Committee for Leadership North Carolina and recently was nominated for membership to the N.C. Institute of Medicine. And of course, I’m still connected to the Gillings School, serving as an adjunct assistant professor in public health leadership and practice.

Can you describe your focus area in one sentence?

I guess that “sentence” would be our mission at Pillar Consulting: Build capacity, encourage innovation and foster change.

What brought you to public health?

I spent much of my childhood volunteering with my mother at local community events and saw this work as a responsibility. A duty. It was meaningful and rewarding in so many ways. My mother learned this responsibility from her mother, and her mother learned it from her mother.

In fact, my great-grandmother and great-grandfather built the first Black-owned convalescent center in Miami, Florida, in the 1930s because no one else would serve Black people. Imagine that. A carpenter and midwife with little to no resources decided they could meet this need. The City of Miami dedicated a building, the Rosie Lee Wesley Health Center, in my great-grandmother’s honor in 1990.

My mother, Dorothy Gaines Banks, served (and created) community everywhere we lived as a military family and ultimately went on to found the First Coast Black Nurses Association in Jacksonville, Fla., after my father retired from the Air Force.

That’s my foundation. That’s our legacy.

I chose to major in biology/pre-medicine at Florida A&M University with aspirations of becoming a physician. While I loved science, medicine wasn’t the fit for me; I was in search of a career that would afford an opportunity to create and engage with the very communities I used to serve with my mom.

Lo and behold, that career was public health. So, I began my “formal” public health training at Boston University School of Public Health, where I earned a Master of Public Health degree in epidemiology and biostatistics. Next, I came to the Gillings School to pursue a doctorate in health behavior.

Can you describe a time when you have pivoted in your public health career?

When the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing, I created a public health campaign, Not A Host™ (NAH), that has reached more than 500,000 people. The Pillar team already led education, instructional design and curriculum design in the virtual space long before the pandemic, but this form of engagement was amplified during COVID-19.

In developing the #NAH Junior Ambassador STEM and Media Engagement training, it was important to our team to equip youth with the knowledge and tools to understand root causes, social determinants of health, medical distrust, informed decision-making, mass communication, health messaging, health literacy and COVID-19.

In 2022, the Pillar team led bilingual virtual educational sessions titled “Drop-in Hours” to provide a forum for the community to stay abreast of the frequent changes that happened throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. We are a multilingual, multigenerational team, and this opportunity served as a way to leverage our training and expertise in an innovative way.

Last — but certainly not least — we were invited to partner with AfroPunk as part of their Sound Therapy Sessions in Los Angeles. So, in brief, the pandemic, while very tragic and painful, offered our team an opportunity to innovate with and serve the most marginalized in our communities.

Who are you when you’re at home?

I’m Dorothy’s child. I am a free, loving spirit.

I love dancing and playing drums. You likely will catch me doing either, or both, of these things at home. I’m also a pup mom to two very silly cocker spaniels, Clover and Mango, who keep me on my toes.