Durrell Fox

In 1994 Durrell Fox became a member of the APHA New Professionals Special Primary Interest Group (SPIG) which, in the early 2000s, became the Community Health Worker (CHW) SPIG and, as of 2009, is now the CHW Section. From the mid 1990s to the present, Durrell has held numerous leadership positions for the Section. These roles include serving as a member of our CHW Section Executive Council from 2002 to the present and serving as the CHW SPIG Chair Elect from 2002-2003 and then Chair from 2003 to 2005.  In 2005 Durrell also began serving as an APHA Governing Councilor, a role he still plays today.

In 2007 Durrell joined APHA’s Action Board as a member and subsequently went on to become the vice chair, and then chair of that group (2009 to the present.)  Durrell also serves on APHA’s Joint Policy Committee, which he joined in 2008, a committee which he currently chairs.  Finally, Durrell became an APHA Executive Board Member in 2009 with a term until 2010. With his extensive participation, Durrell has really given APHA an opportunity to see a CHW in action.

Durrell comes by his activist life naturally having grown up in the home of a community activist and African Nationalist; his mother, Gloria Fox, is a community leader and statewide elected official in Massachusetts. Durrell reports that the family was always involved in marches and community mobilization efforts. During his high school years he stayed active in both the community and in college, where he led the Black Students Association at Suffolk University in Boston. Durrell shares that at the end of college he decided to get a job in the corporate world, remembering all the years of being poor.  This venture was short-lived as he quickly recognized that he preferred social justice work, which he continued during those years doing youth related volunteer work. In 1990 he formally began work as a CHW with youth at Martha Eliot Health Center and Children's Hospital in Boston. He also coordinated a youth Summer Jobs Project for several years with another community based organization in Roxbury, Mass. Durrell still works to do street outreach today as he is able, and he holds tight to his identity as a CHW representing communities that need a voice, especially facing the challenges HIV and AIDS.

Maria Lourdes Fernández

On our first ever “Section” officers’ ballot is the name of Community Health Worker and Arizona CHW Network (AzCHOW) co-founder Maria Lourdes Fernandez.  Maria was proposed by the Nominations Committee to run for the position of Section Chair-Elect; a nomination that received noteworthy support from her colleagues who committed to sustaining Lourdes’ participation in APHA including our next several annual meetings. Given a current vacancy in the Chair-Elect position, the position will begin in August of 2010 and run through APHA’s Annual Meeting in 2011, when the Chair-Elect will become Section Chair. 

A native of Mexico, Lourdes brings a fresh perspective to APHA as a new member as of last fall. But Lourdes is not new to CHW advocacy; she has been giving una voz (a voice) to CHWs and the communities they serve ever since she began her work as CHW some 12 years ago in southern Arizona. Throughout this time Lourdes has been based at the University of Arizona as CHW/Promotora and Program Coordinator working on numerous projects in the Arizona–Sonora, Mexico border region.  Before her formal work as a CHW, Lourdes was a public health aide in a local hospital in the same region.  In Mexico, Lourdes worked in health care and nursing administration also in the border region.

Lourdes has been a participant in both state level and national level efforts to organize CHWs. As already noted above, Lourdes has been involved with AzCHOW since it was established in 2001. During that time she has consistently served as an officer in various roles including network president.  Representing AzCHOW in 2005, Lourdes attended a meeting in the Washington, D.C., area sponsored by the Center for Sustainable Health Outreach (CSHO) that led to the establishment of the American Association of Community Health Workers (AACHW).  For several years she participated in the steering committee of AACHW and came to understand the many challenges of bringing together CHWs from across the nation from varied communities and cultures. She is also a regular participant in the annual CHW Unity conference, also established by CSHO, where she has continued to develop an understanding of CHWs’ work and networks across the United States. As an active organizer of AzCHOW statewide meetings, Lourdes brings a depth of understanding about the value and capacity of meetings, like our annual APHA meeting, to bring individuals together both for learning and networking.