The Contributors

Larry Cohen MSW, is founder and executive director of Prevention Institute, a nonprofit national center dedicated to improving community health and equity through effective primary prevention—taking action to build resilience and to prevent illness and injury before they occur. With an emphasis on health equity, Mr. Cohen has led many successful public health efforts at the local, state, and federal levels concerning injury and violence prevention, mental health, transportation and health, and chronic disease prevention as it relates to diet and physical activity. Mr. Cohen has advanced a deeper understanding of how social determinants shape health outcomes, and Prevention Institute provides resources, conceptual frameworks, and tools to help communities address the underlying causes of health inequities. Prevention Institute has also successfully led state and national efforts to incorporate a focus on and investment in primary prevention as a significant part of health care reform and stimulus funding for communities.

Rachel Davis MSW, is managing director at Prevention Institute. Mrs. Davis oversees Prevention Institute's work in the areas of health equity, community health, violence prevention, mental health, and children and youth. She develops tools for advancing primary prevention, provides consulting and training for various community and government organizations, and advances the conceptual work of the organization. With funding from the federal Office of Minority Health (OMH), Mrs. Davis developed and piloted THRIVE (Tool for Health and Resilience in Vulnerable Environments), a community resilience assessment tool that helps communities bolster factors that will improve health outcomes and reduce disparities experienced by racial and ethnic minorities. An article written by Mrs. Davis on the tool and its initial pilot testing was published in the American Journal of Public Health. She is currently overseeing an OMH-funded project to disseminate THRIVE.

Anthony Iton MD, JD, MPH, was in October 2009 appointed as senior vice president of healthy communities at The California Endowment. Prior to his appointment, Dr. Iton served from 2003 as both the director and county health officer for the Alameda County Public Health Department. In that role he oversaw the creation of an innovative public health practice designed to eliminate health disparities by tackling the root causes of poor health that limit quality of life and life span in many of California's low-income communities. Dr. Iton, who has been published in numerous public health and medical publications, is a regular public health lecturer and keynote speaker at conferences across the nation. He earned his BS in neurophysiology, with honors, from McGill University, in Montreal, Quebec; his JD and MPH at the University of California, Berkeley; and his MD from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Iton has served on the Board of Directors of Prevention Institute.

Lisa M. Jacobs is currently a full-time MSW candidate at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Prior to beginning her graduate studies, Ms. Jacobs served as the Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP) Program Associate at the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) in Washington DC. As program associate, Ms. Jacobs supported the MAPP program and National Public Health Performance Standards Program (NPHPSP) by developing and posting Web content, communicating with local health department staff in regard to MAPP and NPHPSP activities, developing fact sheets and guidance documents, and planning and cofacilitating MAPP trainings in communities throughout the United States. While at NACCHO, Ms. Jacobs also served as a member of several organization-wide initiatives including the Health Equity and Social Justice Team. Prior to joining NACCHO, Ms. Jacobs participated in the National Women's Health Network's Helen Rodriguez-Trias Women's Health Leadership Internship. Ms. Jacobs received her BA from Scripps College of the Claremont Colleges Consortium in Claremont, California.

Julia Joh Elligers, MPH, is a senior analyst at NACCHO. She provides technical assistance and training to local communities, implementing a strategic planning process for community health improvement called Mobilizing for Action through Planning and Partnerships (MAPP). She also provides assistance to communities using the National Public Health Performance Standards (NPHPS); NPHPS helps local public health systems assess their capacity to deliver the ten essential public health services.

Ted Kross is director of the Wilkes-Barre City Health Department. He graduated from Pittston Hospital School of Nursing (as a registered nurse with a diploma in nursing) in spring 1982. He was hired as a staff nurse at the NPW Medical Center in 1982 with an interest in critical care nursing. He began working in emergency medicine in 1983 and continued in various leadership positions at several different institutions through 2008. In 1995 he graduated from King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, with a BS in health care administration (HCA), and he continued in school at King's College and graduated with honors in 2005 with an MS in HCA. He managed the emergency department from 1997 through 2007 at Geisinger Wyoming Valley Medical Center in Wilkes-Barre, and has worked as a prehospital registered nurse (health professional) on life flight interfacility transfers and emergency medical services (EMS) on several ground advance life support (ALS) units up to the present. He wanted to expand his professional career and pursued a director position at Calvert Memorial Hospital just south of Washington DC in 2007. He has been married to a registered nurse for twenty-three years with four children ages thirteen to twenty.

Marc C. Marchese, PhD, received his doctoral degree in industrial-organizational psychology from Iowa State University in 1992. For the past seventeen years he has been a faculty member at King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. He is currently a professor of human resources management and health care administration. He has also published numerous articles in academic journals. Some recent examples include “Tobacco: The Trigger to Other High Risk Health Behaviors” in the Academy of Health Care Management Journal; “Mentor and Protégé Predictors and Outcomes in a Formal Mentoring Program” in the Journal of Vocational Behavior; and “The Use of Marketing Tools to Increase Participation in Worksite Wellness Programs” in the Academy of Health Care Management Journal.

Jill D. Morrow-Gorton, MD, MBA, is a developmental pediatrician serving as the medical director of the Office of Developmental Programs in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's Department of Public Welfare. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and did her pediatric internship and residency at Tufts New England Medical Center at the Boston Floating Hospital. She completed a developmental pediatric fellowship at St. Louis University at the Knights of Columbus Developmental Center at Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital. She is board certified in both pediatrics and developmental and behavioral pediatrics. In 2004 she completed an MBA at Lebanon Valley Hospital in Annville, Pennsylvania.

Sharon Murriguez (formerly Sharon Rodriquez), BA, worked as a program assistant at Prevention Institute from 2007 to 2009. While at Prevention Institute, Mrs. Murriguez focused her efforts on developing training tools and strategies aimed at eliminating health disparities and promoting health equity and community health. She was instrumental in designing and delivering a health disparities training series for grantees of The California Endowment. She also worked on Advancing Public Health Advocacy to Eliminate Health Disparities, a national effort funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to strengthen public health capacity through policy. A key component of this effort was to develop, pilot, and disseminate a Web-based tool to provide policy and prevention training to assist public health professionals and local elected and appointed officials in eliminating health disparities and improving health outcomes within their communities.