Washington, DC, June 29, 2022 —The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) is proud to announce the 2022-2023 election results for NACCHO Officers and Board of Directors. Starting July 1, 2022, the following public health leaders will serve as NACCHO’s Officers:
- Margaret Jahn, MS, MPH, Director of the Freehold Area Health Department in Freehold, New Jersey will become President.
- Pramod Dwivedi, DrPH, MS, MSW, MA, Health Director of Linn County Public Health in Cedar Rapids, Iowa will become President-Elect.
- Michael Kilkenny, MD, MS, Physician Director of the Cabell-Huntington Health Department in Huntington, West Virginia will become Vice President.
- Lisa Macon Harrison, MPH, Local Health Director of Granville Vance Public Health in Oxford, North Carolina will become Immediate-Past President.
As the governing body, the Board of Directors establishes NACCHO’s strategic direction and initiatives in support of local health departments across the country, ensures that annual goals are met, sets the annual legislative agenda, and provides fiduciary oversight. The Board is NACCHO’s public face and represents its members, the nation’s nearly 3,000 local health departments, in matters of policy, public health practice, and collaboration with health partners in the public and private sectors.
About Margaret Jahn, President
Margaret (Margy) Jahn has worked in public health for over 30 years. She graduated from the College of William and Mary with a B.S. in biology and began her career as a Registered Environmental Health Specialist in 1988. Within a short time, Margy recognized that there was a need to improve the public health system in New Jersey and soon sought opportunities to develop her leadership skills. She returned to school and graduated with an M.S. degree in Environmental Science (1992) and continued on to acquire a second master’s degree in Public Health. In 2000, she became a licensed Health Officer for the State of New Jersey and was promoted to the position of Director for the Freehold Area Health Department in 2001. Margy has been a member of the New Jersey State Association of County and City Health Officials (SACCHO) for at least 13 years and has served on the Executive Committee as an Officer for nine years, including a two-year term as President. As a leader in New Jersey, Margy has sought to promote responsible change in governmental public health and has worked hard to give local health departments a voice in response to political forces engulfed in an environment of consolidation and severe budget restraints. Career accomplishments include orchestrating a merger of the County Health Officer Association with the New Jersey Health Officers Association (city and municipal officials), hosting the New Jersey Statewide H1N1 Summit, and being the driving collaborator in establishing a Federally Qualified Health Center in a long over-looked community of need.
About Pramod Dwivedi, President-Elect
Dr. Pramod Dwivedi currently serves as health director of Linn County Public Health (LCPH) in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. LCPH is a full-service health department serving approximately 230,000 people in Linn County. Under his leadership, in 2015, LCPH became the first accredited local health department in Iowa. In 2018, the department received the NACCHO Health Department of the Year award. Currently, his department has been impressively responding to the COVID-19 pandemic by creating a robust partnership with cities and towns, hospitals, schools, refugee centers and minority groups in Linn County. Dr. Dwivedi strongly feels that public health is a team sport. The community partnerships that he has been instrumental in creating now respond to scores of unmet health and social needs. He also built epidemiologic capacity at LCPH and firmly believes that epidemiologic capacity is vital to advancing and improving the public’s health. In addition, Dr. Dwivedi initiated, planned and executed a performance management system, prioritizing key performance indicators and workforce development activities. At Linn County Public Health, he also added 10 new staff and increased the department’s budget by more than 30 percent. In addition to his service on the Board of NACCHO, he was also appointed as NACCHO’s representative to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Maternal and Child Health Epidemiology Award Committee in 2002. He has authored numerous reports, op-eds and articles, and he is interviewed by local and national media.
About Michael Kilkenny, Vice President
Michael Kilkenny, MD is a board-certified family practice physician trained in an innovative residency program, which included preparation to be a local health officer with a master’s degree in community health. He has practiced medicine in settings as varied as remote rural private practice to academic medicine and has had opportunities to serve as medical director in a large Federally Qualified Health Center system before fulfilling his aspiration to serve as a local health officer. As a health officer, Dr. Kilkenny has had opportunities to direct transformative activities to modernize the local health department, and his agency has achieved Public Health Accreditation Board (PHAB) accreditation. In addition, he has led the health department in working collaboratively with multiple partners improving public health statistics in their community regarding opioid harms, tobacco use, and COVID-19 pandemic response. In their opioid work, Dr. Kilkenny’s health department has partnered with academic centers to publish studies that describe injection drug use in rural Appalachia. They have also worked with field staff at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to control a major U.S. HIV outbreak among injection drug users, publishing process and outcome studies to help inform strategic planning regionally and nationally. Dr. Kilkenny serves on the West Virginia Governor’s Council on Substance Abuse, Prevention, and Treatment, and has been a member of the Board of Directors of NACCHO since 2018.
About Lisa Macon Harrison, President Elect
NACCHO thanks Immediate-Past President Lisa Macon Harrison, MPH for her outstanding leadership during the past year for the organization. Lisa has been the director of the Granville Vance Public Health in North Carolina since 2012. Her previous roles in North Carolina public health thread through research, practice, advocacy, and policy development. Lisa has been a member of the public health field for over 23 years and has served as director of the Office of Healthy Carolinians and Health Education at the North Carolina Division of Public Health. Also, Lisa led the Public Health Incubator Collaboratives Program at the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, and she directed the Southeast Public Health Leadership Institute (SEPHLI) at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, where she continues to stay connected as adjunct faculty in the Public Health Leadership Program. In 2015, Lisa served as the North Carolina Public Health Association president where she continues to stay involved, connecting public health research and practice. As a local health director in a rural district, Lisa enjoys advocating for rural public health and provides mentorship for students interested in public health and rural health. Although a true Tar Heel by birth (in Chapel Hill, NC) and by training (UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health), Lisa is also happy to serve as a consulting associate at the Duke University School of Nursing where she hosts national clinical scholars making rotations across North Carolina health system opportunities at Granville Vance Public Health.
About NACCHO’s Full Board of Directors
The complete list of the NACCHO Board of Directors is noted below. This esteemed group of public health leaders will begin their official responsibilities on July 1, 2022.
REGIONAL DIRECTORS
- Damon Chaplin, MBA, City of New Bedford, MA
HHS Region 1: ME, NH, VT, MA, RI, CT - Paul Pettit, MSL, CPH, Genessee and Orleans County Health Department, NY
HHS Region 2: NY, NJ - Meenakshi Brewster, MD, MPH, FAAFP,
St. Mary’s County Health Department, MD
HHS Region 3: PA, DE, MD, DC, VA, WV - Joey Smith, Montgomery County Health Department, TN
HHS Region 4: NC, SC, KY, TN, GA, AL, MS, FL - Sheila Hiddleson, RN, MS, Delaware Public Health District, OH
HHS Region 5: OH, IN, MI, IL, WI, MN - Katherine Wells, MPH, City of Lubbock Health Department, TX
HHS Region 6: AR, LA, TX, OK, NM - Melanie J. Hutton, RN, MSN, Cooper County Public Health, MO
HHS Region 7: MO, NE, IA, KS - Renae Moch, MBA, FACMPE, Bismarck-Burleigh Public Health, ND
HHS Region 8: ND, SD, CO, WY, MT, UT - Janet M. Berreman, MD, MPH, FAAP, Hawaii Department of Health, HI
HHS Region 9: AZ, NV, CA, HI - JP Anderson, MSW, Lewis County Public Health and Social Services, WA
HHS Region 10: ID, OR, WA, AK
AT LARGE DIRECTORS
- Philip Huang, MD, MPH, Dallas County Health and Human Services, TX
Representative of jurisdictions serving populations 1 million and over - Patrick McGough, DNP, MSHR, RN, CHA, Oklahoma City-County Health Department, OK
Representative of jurisdictions serving populations 500,000-1 million - Alan Melnick, MD, MPH, CPH, Clark County Public Health, WA
Representative of jurisdictions serving populations 100,000-500,000 - Kim Engel, MBA, Panhandle Public Health District, NE
Representative of jurisdictions serving populations 50,000-100,000 - Robert Kirkpatrick, MS, Milam County Health Department, TX
Representative of jurisdictions serving populations 50,000 and under
TRIBAL DIRECTOR
- Lisa Pivec, MS, Cherokee National Public Health, OK
EX OFFICIO MEMBER
- Blaire Bryant, National Association of Counties, DC
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About NACCHO
The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) represents the nation’s nearly 3,000 local governmental health departments. These city, county, metropolitan, district, and tribal departments work every day to protect and promote health and well-being for all people in their communities. For more information about NACCHO, please visit www.naccho.org.
