For Immediate Release
Holderby is Winner of Rodriguez-Trias award
San Diego, October 26, 2008
— Lisa Renee Holderby, AS, executive director of the Massachusetts Association of Community Health Workers, was honored with the 2008 Helen Rodriguez-Trias Social Justice Award at the 136th American Public Health Association (APHA) Annual Meeting & Exposition.
First given in 2005, the award honors public health workers who have worked toward social justice for underserved and disadvantaged populations.
Holderby has nearly 20 years of experience as a community health worker and has shown “courageous and innovative leadership in statewide as well as national efforts to improve the health of underserved communities through promoting the unique, essential and often under-recognized contributions of community health workers,” wrote APHA member Gail Hirsch, MEd, coordinator of Workforce Initiatives for the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Division of Primary Care and Health Access, in a letter nominating Holderby for the award.
Holderby is a founding leader of the Massachusetts Association of Community Health Workers and helped ensure the inclusion of community health workers in Massachusetts’ landmark 2006 health care reform legislation.
At APHA, Holderby has served as a Governing Councilor, Community Health Worker Special Primary Interest Group Executive Committee member and chair of the Policy Committee. She is a founding member of the American Association of Community Health Workers, as well as a Steering Committee member and Policy Committee chair. She is a member of the Amigos en Salud National Advisory Board, a practicum advisor for the Massachusetts Institute of Community Health Leadership and a co-chair of the National Community Health Worker Workforce Study’s Technical Advisory Group. She also has served as chair of the CHW Initiative of Boston’s Policy Committee.
She has worked as a bilingual family service coordinator for the Head Start program in Fitchburg, Mass., community coordinator for the Pro-Health Mothers, Infants and Children Program also in Fitchburg, consultant to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Community Health Worker Project in Boston, and as a community organizer for the Massachusetts Public Health Association in Worcester, Mass.
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Founded in 1872, the APHA is the oldest, largest and most diverse organization of public health professionals in the world. The association aims to protect all Americans and their communities from preventable, serious health threats and strives to assure community-based health promotion and disease prevention activities and preventive health services are universally accessible in the United States. APHA represents a broad array of health providers, educators, environmentalists, policy-makers and health officials at all levels working both within and outside governmental organizations and educational institutions. More information is available at www.apha.org.
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