Happy 2011, members and friends of the Health Administration Section!

We hope that you are enjoying the first weeks of 2011 and are as enthusiastic as our Section leadership is about another productive and active new year. We have assembled another top section leadership team in the HA Section who are certainly looking forward to working with our members to enhance the role of health administration in public health. With your guidance and involvement our goal is to provide useful information and tools to support you and your work in the year to come.
Our continuing focus on Vision – Leadership – Strategy – Action is the foundation for the exciting work of 2011. One of the major efforts under way is planning for the 2011 Annual Meeting. Looking ahead, we hope to see you in Washington, D.C. Our members are leaders in their field, and we hope that many will wish to share their successes and lessons learned. See our Special Call for Abstracts here: http://apha.confex.com/apha/139am/ha.htm. Remember, the submissions deadline is Feb. 18, 2011.

Thank you to everyone who volunteered to be an abstract reviewer! You are an essential element to the success of our 2011 program. The HA Program Committee is indeed grateful and honored that so many are willing to assist in this task. For those who volunteered you will be receiving more information electronically. Speaking from experience, the process is very easy. It is also fascinating in terms of the opportunity to review the many great abstracts submitted by members of our Section and other sections on HA-themed topics.

Of course, our Section is active in many other areas where we encourage and need member participation. Some of these activities include expanding our communications outreach, policy development – this year focused on public health accreditation and work force development – nominations for leadership positions, and identifying deserving recipients of our prestigious HA awards. Finally, articles for our HA Newsletter are always welcomed. Please share your successes and lessons learned with your colleagues. Those with brief articles, announcements, photographs, or reports that might be of interest to the membership of our HA Section should e-mail our Web Page Editor Michael Hill (michaelhill@elpasotexas.gov) and our Newsletter Editor Georgianne Mitchell (georgianne_mitchell@yahoo.com).  You can also follow us on Facebook; just go to our HA Section home page at the following Web address  http://www.apha.org/membergroups/sections/aphasections/healthadmin/ and click on the Facebook link at the bottom of the page. Your posts are welcomed!

Finally, if you are looking for a way to help support our Section, please consider a making a financial donation. All funds raised through the HA Section will be targeted to supporting students, Annual Meeting scholarships, and programs that enhance public health leadership. APHA will soon provide a website for you to target your donation to the Section of your choosing. We hope you will consider making a small contribution to the HA Administration Section. On behalf of our membership co-chairs Angela CJ Vincent (acyriljo@jhsph.edu) and Geneva Garner (g.r.garner@gmail.com), please encourage your colleagues to consider joining the Health Administration Section as their primary or as a second level membership.