Engage, collaborate and grow at these key events! You won’t want to miss them.
Sunday, Nov. 12
Opening General Session
11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Join us at the official kick-off of APHA’s 2023 Annual Meeting, where you will hear from APHA leaders, celebrate our accomplishments and hear from the biggest names in public health. You won’t want to miss Admiral Rachel Levine, MD, the 17th Assistant Secretary for Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the head of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. This year, the CDC Foundation will award their prestigious Fries Prize for Improving Health during the Opening General Session. This is a session you won’t want to miss.
America Dissected Podcast Live
Public Health & the Internet: Social Media, AI and the Future of Public Health
4:30-6 p.m.
The persistent underrepresentation of individuals from populations that have suffered from discrimination and racism in health education, postgraduate training and practice remains a blight on our nation. This session will explore the impact of the Supreme Court decision that undermines race conscious admission decisions in higher education that were designed to reverse years of inequities. The panel will also explore the way forward to ensure qualified individuals from underrepresented populations continue to have the opportunity to obtain high quality health education and reverse this national tragedy. Don't miss the chance to hear from the guest panelist, author Ian Bogost.
Monday, Nov. 13
APHA Public Health Awards Ceremony and Luncheon
12:30-2 p.m.
Monday General Session - We Dissent: Ensuring equity in public health education
4:30-6 p.m.
The persistent underrepresentation of individuals from populations that have suffers from discrimination and racism in health education, postgraduate training and practice remains a blight on our nation. This session will explore the impact of the recent Supreme Court decision that undermines race conscious admission decisions in higher education that were designed to reverse years of inequities. The panel will also explore the way forward to ensure qualified individuals from underrepresented populations continue to have the opportunity to obtain high quality health education and reverse this national tragedy.
Wednesday, Nov. 15
Closing General Session – Looking ahead: the steps needed to transform the public health system
2:30-4 p.m.
We need to reimagine our public health system. The urgency of building a robust, equitable and resilient system has been heightened by the challenges of the COVID pandemic, after years of chronic underfunding and neglect of federal, state, tribal, local and territorial health departments. While some policymakers have pledged to support and strengthen the public health system, others have criticized it and questioned its value. In response, a number of respected national public health leaders and organizations — including those within APHA — have recently published noteworthy opinion pieces and reports with thoughtful observations and recommendations on the future of the public health system. While these documents have begun to influence policymakers at the federal, state and local levels, some leaders have expressed confusion over the many different priorities and suggestions. To help, the Alliance for Disease Prevention and Response, housed at APHA, has been engaged in the critical work of prioritizing key areas and issues that require immediate and long-term action. This session will bring together authors of some of the leading reports to discuss similarities and differences in their perspectives on the most important action steps. Preliminary efforts by the Alliance to bring together partners to identify a common set of priorities to move our public health system ahead with a truly comprehensive, effective and inclusive structure will also be explored. The session will include thoughts about the roles for APHA’s members — including a diverse set of cross-sectoral community partners — to build this optimal public health system and advance equity.
APHA Champion Conversations
Champion Conversations bring the most engaging and influential public health leaders and professionals to the Annual Meeting to encourage thought-provoking conversations and ideas that lead to concrete actions for attendees to implement. Click on the session titles to read descriptions and meet the speakers.
Declining US Health: A Population Health Emergency!
Sunday, Nov. 12 | 2:30-4 p.m.
America Dissect Podcast Recording: Public Health & the Internet: Social Media, AI and the future of Public Health
Sunday, Nov. 12 | 4:30-6 p.m.
Emerging Issues in Research Equity
Monday, Nov. 13 | 8:30-10 a.m.
(re)Building Trust in Public Health by Engaging People with Lived Experiences
Monday, Nov. 13 | 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m.
AJPH Session - Bottom Up Public Health: Input of communities into policy
Monday, Nov. 13 | 2:30-4 p.m.
Building and Innovative, Diverse and Effective Public Health Workforce
Tuesday, Nov. 14 | 8:30-10 a.m.
The Economic Burden of Health Inequity: A Social Justice Issue and Economic Imperative
Tuesday, Nov. 14 | 2:30-4 p.m.
Public Health Goes Digital: Can Disruptive Technologies be the Solution to the Public Health Crisis?
Wednesday, Nov. 15 | 8:30-10 a.m.
Notable Speakers
John Auerbach
Closing General Session
Wednesday, Nov. 15 | 2:30-4 p.m.
John Auerbach is the senior vice president for health at ICF. As such, he is ICF’s primary federal health expert and thought leader within the company’s public sector business. Over the course of a 30-year career, he has held senior public health positions at the federal, state and local levels in both governmental and non-governmental organizations. He was previously the director of intergovernmental and strategic affairs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, serving as the strategic advisor on CDC engagement with the government agencies at the federal, state, local, tribal and territorial levels, public health partners and other external partners. Earlier in his career, Auerbach was the CDC associate director and oversaw policy and the agency’s collaborative efforts with CMS, commercial payers and large health systems. For five years, he served as the president and CEO of Trust for America’s Health, where he oversaw TFAH's work to promote sound public health policy and make disease prevention a national priority through research, reports, communications campaigns and government relations. During his six years as the commissioner of public health for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, he developed innovative programs to promote health equity, combat chronic and infectious disease, and support the successful implementation of the state’s health care reform initiative. As Boston’s health commissioner for nine years, he directed homeless, substance abuse, and emergency medical services for the city as well as a wide range of public health divisions. During his tenure at the city, he served on NACCHO’s board.
Abdul El-Sayed, MD, DPhil
Live Podcast Taping of America Dissected
Sunday, Nov. 12 | 4:30-6 p.m.
Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is a physician, epidemiologist and public servant. He serves as director of Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human & Veterans Services and health officer for the county, serving 1.8 million residents of Michigan’s largest and most diverse county under Chief Executive Warren C. Evans. Abdul hosts Crooked Media’s award-winning “America Dissected” podcast, attracting tens of thousands of weekly listeners to go beyond the headlines to explore the intersection between health and society. His three books include “Healing Politics,” calling for a politics of empathy to cure our epidemic of insecurity, and “Medicare for All: A Citizen’s Guide” with Dr. Micah Johnson. His over 100 peer-reviewed publications have earned over 3,000 citations. He holds academic appointments at the intersection between public health, public policy and politics at the University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, the FXB Center for Health & Human Rights at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Wayne State University and American University. He is formerly the health director for the city of Detroit, candidate for governor of Michigan in 2018 and commentator at CNN. He’s a proud member of the National Writers Union, AFT Locals 477 and 6244, SEIU Local 500 and the AAUP.
Tom Inglesby, MD
Closing General Session
Wednesday, Nov. 15 | 2:30-4 p.m.
Dr. Inglesby is the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. The Center is dedicated to protecting people’s health from the consequences of epidemics and disasters. Dr. Inglesby is also a professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, with a joint appointment in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Dr. Inglesby's work is internationally recognized in the fields of public health preparedness, pandemic and emerging infectious disease, and prevention of and response to biological threats. He was chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the Center for Preparedness and Response at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2010 to 2019. He was chair of the National Advisory Council of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s National Health Security Preparedness Index. He was also a member of the CDC Director’s External Laboratory Safety Workgroup, which examined biosafety practices of the CDC, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration following high-profile laboratory incidents in federal agencies. He has served as advisor to the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security on preparedness and response issues, and he has testified before Congress on many occasions. He has served on a range of committees and panels of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Inglesby has provided technical guidance to response efforts at the global, federal, state and local level. He has given analysis and expert testimony to policymakers, business leaders, and health organizations on public health interventions needed to control the pandemic. Dr. Inglesby served as senior advisor on the White House COVID-19 Response Team.
Katalin Karikó
Opening General Session
Fries Prize Recipient
Sunday, Nov. 12 | 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Katalin Karikó is professor at University of Szeged and adjunct professor of neurosurgery at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, where she worked for 24 years. She is former senior vice president at BioNTech SE, Mainz, Germany, where she worked between 2013-2022. She received her PhD in biochemistry from University of Szeged, Hungary, in 1982. For four decades, her research has been focusing on RNA-mediated mechanisms with the ultimate goal of developing in vitro-transcribed mRNA for protein therapy. She investigated RNA-mediated immune activation and co-discovered that nucleoside modifications suppress immunogenicity of RNA, which widened the therapeutic potentials of mRNA. She is co-inventor on mRNA-related patents for application of non-immunogenic, nucleoside-modified RNA. Fourteen of those are granted by the U.S. She co-founded and from 2006-2013 served as CEO of RNARx, a company dedicated to develop nucleoside-modified mRNA for therapy. Her patents, co-invented with Drew Weissman on nucleoside-modified uridines in mRNA is used to create the FDA-approved COVID-19 mRNA vaccines by BioNTech/Pfizer and Moderna to fight the pandemic. For her achievement she received many prestigious awards, including the Paul Ehrlich Prize, the Breakthrough Prize and the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award.
Laura Rasar King
Monday General Session
Monday, Nov. 13 | 4:30-6 p.m.
Laura Rasar King, EdD, MPH, serves as the executive director of the Council on Education for Public Health. She has 20 years of experience leading public health and higher education organizations in their quality assurance and improvement efforts. Her work and career have focused on ensuring that academic public health produces graduates that meet the needs of the public health workforce. Dr. King has served in an integral role in advancing workforce development efforts in public health through her professional activities. As a member of the National Board of Public Health Examiners since 2013, she co-chaired the Job Task Analysis steering committee. In addition, she has served in a variety of appointed and elected positions in the American Public Health Association, including as a member of the Education Board. Dr. King also serves in a variety of capacities in the higher education accreditation community. She has served as chair of the Association of Specialized and Professional Accreditors, as well as chair of the Education Policy Committee. She served as the primary negotiator for specialized accreditation on the 2019 Negotiated Rulemaking Committee convened by the Department of Education to renegotiate rules to implement the Higher Education Act. She regularly advocates for professional education and its connection to workforce needs, especially in the health professions, and the importance of quality assurance programs at a national level. Dr. King is a frequent speaker on higher education, accreditation, academic public health and public health workforce issues. She has published several articles in public health journals including: American Journal of Public Health, Health Education & Behavior, Health Promotion Practice and Frontiers in Public Health.
Rachel L. Levine, MD
Opening General Session
Sunday, Nov. 12 | 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Admiral Rachel L. Levine serves as the 17th assistant secretary for health for the Department of Health and Human Services and the head of the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. She fights every day to improve the health and well-being of all Americans. She’s working to help our nation overcome the COVID-19 pandemic and build a stronger foundation for a healthier future - one in which every American can attain their full health potential. ADM Levine’s storied career, first, as a physician in academic medicine focused on the intersection between mental and physical health, treating children, adolescents, and young adults. Then as Pennsylvania’s physician general and later as Pennsylvania’s secretary of health, she addressed COVID-19, the opioid crisis, behavioral health and other public health challenges.
Valerie Montgomery Rice, MD, FACOG
Monday General Session
Monday, Nov. 13 | 4:30-6 p.m.
Valerie Montgomery Rice, MD, FACOG, is the sixth president and chief executive officer of Morehouse School of Medicine. She is the first woman in history to lead the freestanding medical institution. Between 2014 and 2021, she served as the institution's dean and president. Her tenure began at Morehouse School of Medicine in 2011, when she was appointed dean and executive vice president. Aside from her work at MSM, Montgomery Rice has served as a faculty member and leader at various health centers, including academic health centers. As one of the nation's first centers dedicated to studying diseases that disproportionately affect women of color, she was founder of the Center for Women's Health Research at Meharry Medical College. A passionate advocate for health equity, Montgomery Rice is committed to enhancing pipeline opportunities for academically diverse learners, diversifying the physician and scientific workforce, as well as fostering equity in health outcomes and access to health care. A Georgia native, Montgomery Rice holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology, a medical degree from Harvard Medical School, an honorary degree from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and a Doctor of Humane Letters honorary degree from Rush University. These achievements demonstrate her lifetime commitment to education, service and advancing health equity. Her residency training in obstetrics and gynecology was at Emory University School of Medicine, while her fellowship training was at Hutzel Hospital for Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility.
Anand Parkeh, MD, MPH
Closing General Session
Wednesday, Nov. 15 | 2:30-4 p.m.
Dr. Anand Parekh is chief medical advisor at the Bipartisan Policy Center where he provides clinical and public health expertise across the organization. Prior to joining BPC, he completed a decade of service at the Department of Health and Human Services. As a HHS deputy assistant secretary for health in the Senior Executive Service from 2008 to 2015, he developed and implemented national initiatives focused on prevention, wellness and care management. Briefly in 2007, he was delegated the authorities of the HHS assistant secretary for health, overseeing ten health program offices and the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps. Parekh is a board-certified internal medicine physician, a fellow of the American College of Physicians, an adjunct professor of health management and policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and an adjunct assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University. His book "Prevention First: Policymaking for a Healthier America" was released in December 2019 and argues that prevention must be our nation’s top health policy priority.
Joan Y. Reede, MD, MPH, MS, MBA
Monday General Session
Monday, Nov. 13 | 4:30-6 p.m.
Joan Reede is dean for diversity and community partnership; professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School; professor of society, human development and health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Reede has a lifelong passion for mentoring and supporting diversity in the biosciences. She is responsible for the development and management of a comprehensive program that provides leadership, guidance, and support to promote the increased recruitment, retention, and advancement of underrepresented minority faculty. While at HMS, Joan created more than 20 diversity and leadership-focused programs, including founding the HMS Minority Faculty Development Program and the Biomedical Science Careers Program. Before joining Harvard, she served as the medical director of a Boston community health center and worked as a pediatrician in community and academic health centers, juvenile prisons, and public schools. She has held many advisory roles, serving on the HHS Advisory Committee on Minority Health and the Secretary’s Advisory Committee to the Director of NIH. Dr. Reede is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Reede graduated from Brown University and Mount Sinai School of Medicine. She holds an MPH and an MS in Health Policy Management from Harvard T. H. Chan School, and an MBA from Boston University.
Anne Schuchat, MD
Opening General Session
Fries Prize Recipient
Sunday, Nov. 12 | 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Anne Schuchat, MD, is an internist and epidemiologist whose career at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spanned 33 years. She was the agency’s principal deputy director from 2015-2021 and served twice as acting director. From 2006-2015, she was the first director of CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, leading the nation’s immunization program through recommendations for several new vaccines and the global deployment of vaccines against pneumonia and meningitis. She was instrumental in decades of CDC’s emergency responses and collaborated on meningitis, pneumonia, and Ebola vaccine trials in West Africa. In the 1990’s, Dr. Schuchat spearheaded guidelines for prevention of perinatal group B streptococcus, preventing an estimated 100,000 newborn life-threatening infections so far. Dr. Schuchat retired as a Rear Admiral in the Commissioned Corps of the USPHS in 2018 and from CDC in 2021. She serves on the boards of Swarthmore College and GAVI, the Vaccine Alliance.
Josh Sharfstein, MD
Closing General Session
Wednesday, Nov. 15 | 2:30-4 p.m.
Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein is vice dean for public health practice and community engagement, director of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative, and professor of the practice in health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is a former health commissioner of Baltimore City, health secretary of Maryland and principal deputy commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and the National Academy of Public Administration.