M. Beth Benedict, DrPH, JD

M. Beth Benedict, DrPH, JD, RN, a member of APHA and the Public Health Nursing Section since 1978.  She holds memberships in the Maryland and the Arizona Public Health Associations, as well as a number of other professional organizations.  She holds a current RN license and has a law license to practice in Maryland. She does pro bono representation of women and children who are victims of violence and abuse.  She is in her 9^th year of mediating court cases for the District Court of Maryland. In 2000 Dr. Benedict received the APHA Executive Director’s Citation, and in 1999 the PHN Section’s Margaret G. Arnstein Award. 

Dr. Benedict is a 20-year employee of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Office of Research, Development and Information, working on Medicaid studies with an emphasis on quality, health disparities, and the health care received by women and children. She has co-authored a number of peer-reviewed journal articles on the topics. As the CMS liaison to NIH Federal Liaison Group on Asthma she is also participating in updating the respiratory-related objectives for Healthy People 2020.  In 1999 she received the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service related to its asthma report; and, in 2008 she received an award for excellence from her research office. 

In APHA Dr. Benedict has been in the leadership in the Intersectional Council, the Bylaws Committee, and a member of the Education Board, the Awards Committee, and the Committee on Women’s Rights, the former Development Cabinet, and the development of the continuing education program.  In the PHN Section she has served as the Section Chair, and a member of the Section Council.  Currently she chairs the APHA Bylaws Committee and the PHN Section’s Education Committee leading the accreditation for continuing nursing education.  Dr. Benedict has brought her legal knowledge to the Bylaws Committee to assuring that the Association’s governance documents reflect current practice and are consist with the current corporate laws of the District of Columbia. 

As President of her townhome’s community association, she oversees a non-profit corporation with an annual $800,000 budget for 275 acres, and more than a 2000 feet of shore line for 686 homes in the environmentally conscious,‘go green’ Anne Arundel County of Maryland.