Biography

Megan Weil Latshaw, PhD, MHS, works to improve health through changes in our environment, by working to make the easy choice the healthy choice. In general, her efforts focus on making public health science useful for: 

• - Lawmakers 
• - Those working in public health or environmental agencies 
• - The public

With a doctorate in Environmental Health Sciences from Johns Hopkins, Dr. Weil Latshaw rejoined their faculty after working for more than a decade in the non-profit world. She serves JHU’s Planetary Health Institute as co-Director of the Education Program, the Bloomberg American Health Initiative on the Environmental Challenges Steering Committee, and recently as co-chair of JHU’s Sustainability Plan Steering Committee. She also serves as Director of Master’s Degree Programs in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering, and teaches at both the undergraduate & graduate levels. Her massive open online course on Chemicals & Health has enrolled over 100,000 students from all over the world. 

Previously, Dr. Weil Latshaw served as Chair of the American Public Health Association’s Environment Section, then as the Chair of the Association’s Intersectional Council (and as an ex officio member of the Executive Board). She has participated on dozens of committees (including the National Academies and for the European Commission), presented at dozens of gatherings (including Congressional briefings), and co-authored multiple peer-reviewed articles (the first of which was published in JAMA).  

Prior to Hopkins, Dr. Weil Latshaw worked to strengthen environmental and public health laboratories as the Environmental Health Director at the Association of Public Health Laboratories. Her team focused on creating a national biomonitoring system, testing for agents of chemical terrorism, and building a home base for environmental laboratories. Before that, Dr. Weil Latshaw served as the Senior Director for Environmental Health Policy at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, where her efforts included creating the State Environmental Health Directors group.  

Dr. Weil Latshaw’s current efforts focus on designing healthy communities through transportation, examining states’ preparedness to deal with the health impacts of climate change, and improving environmental health surveillance. Everything she does is through an equity and justice lens. 

Candidate Statement

The public health system in the US has been broken for a while. Spread across multiple agencies, it often fails to respond to community concerns. Even when it functions well, not many Americans realize people behind the scenes work every day to promote health. 

The current dismantling of the system represents an opportunity for a new streamlined version that can:

• address silos that previously impeded coordination 
• prioritize data collection and integration, taking advantage of machine learning and AI 
• involve public-private partnerships (consider the data our phones and watches collect) 
• be co-led by community members  
• better integrate with the health system, including health care, mental health, and insurance

Other opportunities haven’t even been imagined! APHA needs to lead and I want to help. Over my career, I have worked in academia and non-profits, at the interface of community and health at the state, local, federal and even global levels. Programs I helped build still remain in place decades later. 

Years after joining APHA, I volunteered to review abstracts for the Environment Section. Then I joined their Membership Committee, ran the mentoring program, and was asked to run for Chair. As Chair, I led the establishment of a vision and a mission for the Section, built visibility of climate within APHA, built increased engagement & funding, responded to attacks on science, submitted comments to EPA, developed letters to Congress, responded to Flint, and more.  

After that, I was elected to Chair the Inter-sectional Council Steering Committee. Under my leadership, ISC piloted a way to engage community, highlighted sections’ responses to COVID-19 and efforts to address racism, proposed bylaws changes, and changes to the New Chair Guide.  

I hope you will elect me to re-join the Executive Board to help shepherd the field through such unprecedented times.  

View Megan Latshaw's CV (PDF)