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The Health and Human Services Agency’s 2024 Live Well San Diego Public Health Champion Awards Ceremony was held on Friday, April 5, 2024. This occasion honored 12 native folks and organizations for his or her excellent contributions within the prevention of illness or harm and the promotion of public well being for all San Diegans.

The annual awards ceremony is held throughout National Public Health Week, a time to acknowledge the significance of public well being and enhancing the nation’s well being total.

County Public Health Officer Wilma J. Wooten, M.D., M.P.H. hosted the occasion, in partnership with Interim Health and Human Services Agency Director, Eric McDonald, M.D., M.P.H., Elizabeth Hernandez, P.H.D., Public Health Director and a videotaped message from Chairwoman Nora Vargas.

This 12 months’s theme for National Public Health Week is “Protecting, Connecting, and Thriving: We Are All Public Health.” The focus is how we’re all interconnected by highlighting seven each day sub themes; civic engagement, wholesome neighborhoods, local weather change, new instruments and improvements, reproductive and sexual well being, emergency preparedness, and the way forward for public well being.

The Public Health Champions award classes included Director’s Awards; Public Health Services Awards for people and organizations; and Aging and Independence Services, Medical Care Services, and Regional Awards.

This is the 23^rd 12 months for the Public Health Champions Awards Ceremony. The occasion helps the mission of the Health and Human Services Agency to make the lives of all 3.3 million San Diegans more healthy, safer and self-sufficient.

Director’s Award

Wilma J. Wooten, M.D., M.P.H.

Dr. Wilma Wooten has been with the County since 2001, serving because the Deputy Health Officer; then promotion to Public Health Officer and Director for Public Health Services, in 2007; and persevering with as Public Health Officer, in 2022. Dedicated to addressing well being disparities, Dr. Wooten developed a groundbreaking Health Equity Framework for native well being departments to combine fairness into their organizations.

Dr. Wooten labored tirelessly in the course of the pandemic, main the County’s COVID-19 response. She manages public well being initiatives on Perinatal Equity, opioid use, tuberculosis, and hepatitis C to call just some. She is past-Chair of the California Conference of Local Health Officers, the Big Cities Health Coalition, and the Board of Directors for the nationwide Public Health Accreditation Board.

Public Health Services Awards

Leticia Cázares, MPH

Leticia Cázares has devoted her profession to eliminating well being and social inequities. She has served as a Board Member for the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial Counties and as Director of Outreach and Education for San Ysidro Health Center’s CASA program. Cázares’s advocacy work elevated Latin illustration on the San Diego HIV Planning Council in South Region and helped increase native funding.

Today, she is Co-Director for the Center for Equitable and Diverse Research at San Diego State University, with a purpose of remodeling scientific analysis by rising recruitment of various communities in scientific trials.

Charles “Chuck” Matthews III, PhD, MBA, MS

Chuck Matthews is devoted to advancing public well being training by selling robust relationships between the general public well being division and educational establishments to boost training, analysis, and repair. This mannequin served as the inspiration for the Live Well Center for Innovation and Leadership, a partnership between SDSU and the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Agency.

Matthews has intensive expertise engaged on border and binational well being points, is a Leaders throughout Borders Scholar, and a CDC National Public Health Leadership Alumni. He is at the moment the Interim Director of a brand new Doctorate Program of Public Health at San Diego State University.

CSUSM HOPE & Wellness Center

The California State University San Marcos HOPE & (Health, Outreach, Promotion, Education) Center strives to offer culturally competent well being promotion packages to assist college students develop wholesome behaviors and life-style decisions. For the previous 23 years, the Center has fostered a tradition of well-being on campus by participating college students and empowering the campus neighborhood.

The Center presents a variety of companies, together with psychological well being advocacy, workshops, trainings, academic sources, one-on-one academic counseling, and neighborhood occasions.

Department Awards

AIS – Rosemary W. Pope

Rosemary W. Pope, Executive Director of the Fourth District Seniors Resource Center, has spent her 28-year profession devoted to older adults. She is a long-time contributor to Aging & Independence Services packages together with health courses, academic displays on well being and security, an elder abuse coaching toolkit, and coordinating a fraud consciousness occasion centered on prevention for older adults.

Pope has additionally labored with Feeding San Diego to offer older adults with month-to-month meals provides and not too long ago organized a neighborhood storm injury neighborhood discussion board to offer help, info, and help to affected residents and minority-owned companies.

MCS – Jack Dailey, Esq.

Jack Dailey, Director of Policy and Training on the Consumer Center for Health Education and Advocacy, helps customers entry healthcare protection and companies. Dailey additionally serves on the Health Consumer Alliance, a state-wide community of 10 well being shopper advocacy packages. His work spans 58 counties, and interprets the teachings discovered from particular person case work into native and statewide coverage and programs enchancment.

Dailey has served the San Diego neighborhood for almost 20 years and been a well being shopper advocate for over 15 years.

Regional Awards

South – Ana Lozano

Ana Lozano is a Senior Growth and Community Engagement Specialist with Molina HealthCare of California. She has spent greater than 15 years working in healthcare the place she advocates for neighborhood wants whereas fostering a tradition of collaboration.

Lozano is an energetic member of the Live Well San Diego regional management crew. Her professionalism, creativity, and vitality allow her to develop, design, and discover sources and companies for a number of the most underserved households within the space. Her bilingual and bicultural communication abilities are invaluable in connecting with households, communities, and faculty districts. Lozano’s ardour and dedication has fostered belief and lasting relationships with the neighborhood and companions.

Central – Depositing Empowerment Through Outreach & Urban Redevelopment (DETOUR)

Depositing Empowerment Through Outreach & Urban Redevelopment is a mentoring program for teen women of colour to create fairness and inclusion in larger training and the workforce. It uplifts, motivates, and conjures up women to turn out to be personally, academically, and professionally profitable by way of training, empowerment, and the humanities.

DETOUR offers a collection of academic workshops and actions to have interaction teen women in a secure area. These workshops enable them to precise themselves, ask questions surrounding their experiences, and create optimistic relationships with others to boost development and growth.

North Inland – Edward Becerra

Edward Becerra is the founding father of ‘Education Begins in the Home,’ a non-profit that gives free books to younger folks all through San Diego County. His efforts have offered 1000’s of youngsters with books, rising literacy and studying, particularly in Latino communities he serves.

Becerra is devoted to many North Inland packages together with the Grandparents Raising Grandchildren Symposium. He offers books and sources in English and Spanish every year and volunteers as a result of he believes each home ought to have a house library. Since May 2015, ‘Education Begins in the Home’ has distributed 140,000 FREE books at greater than 425 occasions.

North Coastal – Max Disposti, MS, NPML

Max Disposti, Executive Director and Founder of the North County LGBTQ Resource Center, exemplifies compassionate management and neighborhood service. His most up-to-date work centered on easing the humanitarian disaster in Oceanside the place migrants have been being launched, beginning in September 2023. Disposti’s dedication, advocacy, and tireless coordination ensured that a whole lot of weak folks acquired the help they urgently wanted.

North Central – Tomasa Velediaz

Tomasa Velediaz is a long-time Bayside resident and neighborhood advocate, who has served greater than 20 years as a volunteer and program participant on the Bayside Community Center. She is a graduate of Bayside’s Resident Leadership Academy, leads month-to-month neighborhood cleanups within the neighborhood and is on the entrance traces of Bayside’s meals distributions and Senior Lunch Program.

Fluent in Spanish and English, Velediaz has served on quite a few Linda Vista neighborhood initiatives, together with lighting enhancements in Kelly Street Park, site visitors calming mechanisms close to colleges, a Women’s Savings group, and as an advocate for Urban Agriculture.

East – Afrah Abdulkader

Afrah Abdulkader is Arab-American and emigrated to America at 30 years previous. She works for the International Rescue Committee, in San Diego County, serving all refugees, asylum seekers, asylees, and immigrants. Since 2012, Abdulkader has labored to boost consciousness and supply help to survivors of home violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and hate crimes.

For the final 10 years, Abdulkader has served as a chair for the Welcome Newcomers Network, conducting coaching packages corresponding to Healthy and Unhealthy Relationships, Know Your Rights and Responsibilities, and Culture Sensitivity to newcomers and collaborative companions.