February Community Conversation: Health Equity

Voted Master of Public Health Student of the year 2020, Janae Bady is rising leader in the field of health education. With background in public health and leadership, Janae finished her Central Michigan University academic career as one of three students in her cohort to become a published first author, while teaching 4-6 sections of undergraduate classes on healthy lifestyle topics. Janae has also been very active in Eta Sigma Gamma and SOPHE, holding multiple leadership positions and now working her way up for nomination as student trustee on SOPHE?s board of trustees. Janae is a Health Education Specialist and a first-year student in the doctoral program for Health Education at Texas A&M University. She is passionate about helping her students succeed and prepare for careers in public health and allied health fields.

La Verne D. Partlow, M.Ed., Health Education Coordinator at Gaston County Public Health. La Verne has over 27 years of experience in public health at the local and state levels. From 1997 to 2000, she worked at the Iredell County Health Department as the Health Education Specialist. During her tenure, she developed and implemented a lay health advisor program to address sexually transmitted infections in the African-American community. From 2000 to 2005, La Verne worked as a Program Consultant in infant morbidity and mortality in the African American community with the NC Department of Health and Human Services. Since 2005, she has been working in the field of chronic disease prevention.