Public Health Awards Reception & Ceremony

On Tuesday, November 9, join colleagues at the Public Health Awards Reception and Ceremony to recognize the individuals who will be receiving APHA’s most distinguished awards. Enjoy this opportunity to celebrate the successes and achievements of these exceptional awardees. The award reception and ceremony will take place at 6:30 pm at the Colorado Convention Center. Check the Annual Meeting Final Program for specific location. Guests will be welcomed with hors d’oeuvres and beverages prior to the ceremony.

These prestigious awards include

• Milton & Ruth Roemer Prize for Creative Local Public Health Work: This award is presented to a local health officer of a county, city or other unit of local government, who has been found to be responsible for outstanding creative and innovative public health work. Priority is given to a health officer whose work can be replicated by other health officers and who has overcome opposition and has mobilized popular support for his or her work.
  
• Presidential Citation: This award recognizes extraordinary contributions to the advancement of public health by people not professionally engaged in public health (not always annually awarded.)
  
• Sedgwick Memorial Medal: Has been awarded by APHA since 1929 for distinguished service and "advancement of public health knowledge and practice," and was established in honor of the late Professor William Thompson Sedgwick, who was President of the APHA in 1915 and Head of the Department of Biology and Public Health at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1883 to 1921. One of the highest honors bestowed by APHA, the Sedgwick Memorial Medal is a true accolade of the profession—the recognition by an individual's colleagues of outstanding accomplishments in the field.
  
• APHA Award for Excellence: This award is given each year to a living individual in recognition of his or her exceptionally meritorious contributions to the improvements of the health of the people. It honors creative work of particular effectiveness in applying scientific knowledge or innovative organizational work to the betterment of community health. Individuals nominated for the award have made significant and well-recognized contributions to the improvement of health.
  
• The David P. Rall Award for Advocacy in Public Health: This award recognizes an individual who has made outstanding contributions to public health through science-based advocacy, nationally or internationally.
  
• The Martha May Eliot Award: This award honors exceptional achievement in the field of maternal and child health; to bring such achievement to the eyes of related professional people and the public; to stimulate young people in the field to emulate the efforts resulting in such recognition; and to add within the profession and in the eyes of the public to the stature of professional workers in the field of maternal and child health.
  
• Jay S. Drotman Memorial Award: This award recognizes a health worker or student, age 30 or younger, who has demonstrated potential in the health field by challenging traditional public health policy or practice in a creative and positive manner.
  
• APHA Executive Director Citation: This award honors an individual APHA member for exceptional service to the Association. (not always annually awarded.)
  
• Distinguished Public Health Legislator of the Year: This award recognizes legislators serving at the federal, state or local levels who have made significant contributions to advancing effective legislation and championed for public health priorities.