Health Education and Promotion Strategies to Address COVID-19 Among Disparately Affected Populations

Raffy R. Luquis is an associate professor of health education in the School of Behavioral Sciences and Education at Penn State Harrisburg. Dr. Luquis also serves as the professor-in-charge of the of the health education master’s degree and the program coordinator for the biobehavioral health undergraduate’ degree. Dr. Luquis has a broad background in health education and health promotion. His primary teaching and research interests are cultural competency and multicultural health, health promotion, and human sexuality. He earned the certified health education specialist credential in 1995 and the master certified health education specialist credential in 2011 from the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing in 2011. He served in the SOPHE Board of Trustees from 2016-2020.

Tara Lutz is the training director at the Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research, and Service (CT UCEDD) and an assistant professor of public health sciences at the University of Connecticut (UConn) School of Medicine. She coordinates the graduate Certificate of Interdisciplinary Disability Studies in Public Health and co-directs the clinical doctoring course for second year medical students. She is a Master Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES ®).
Her areas of interest include disability and public health, health education and health promotion, addressing issues of health equity across different communities, and integrating disability education and competency into public health and health care training programs. She is skilled in curriculum development for public health and medical students in public health, disability, and racism and bias that incorporates a health equity framework to describe and address systems-level issues including access, accessibility, and inclusivity.

At SOPHE, Tara is the national delegate for Connecticut (CT) SOPHE, and the speaker of the House of Delegates for 2022. She is dedicated to public health education students, professionals, and those we serve. She strives for equitable access to services, education, and communication through ways in which are consumable to our many audiences. She values collaboration, partnerships, teamwork, and accountability. To borrow from the newly-revised 10 Essential Public Health Services, I see one my contributions to the field is to develop our workforce to “enable equitable access” and “build a diverse and skilled workforce”.

Current APHA Food and Nutrition Section Fellow, former 21st Century Scholar, and PhD Candidate Bree Bode is a skilled qualitative researcher who takes an interest in learning about community-based solutions to the food insecurity-obesity paradox. With practical experience in community-health, Bree's research trajectory expands over nutrition-related behavior, food environment policy, wellness, life course development, the social determinants of health and health equity. Bree brings her lived experience with federally funded nutrition programs, her MPH, and her CHES certification to her endeavors in the classroom and coalition work. She is passionate social justice, evaluation, and theory within the public health realm.

Suzanne Miro, is a Master Certified Health Education Specialist with over 25 years of experience in both public and private health sectors.  Ms. Miro is currently the Senior Health Communication Specialist in the Communicable Disease Service of the New Jersey Department of Health focusing on infectious diseases, antibiotic resistance, public health emergency response, health education, risk communication, quality improvement, and public health accreditation.  She played an integral role in the design and delivery of educational activities and materials for postal workers who were exposed to anthrax in the fall of 2001 and all major public health responses since that time including H1N1, Ebola, Zika, and SARS-CoV2.  Ms. Miro has spoken nationally on health education emergency preparedness and infectious disease topics and continues to work on issues related to health education capacity building and public information for health emergencies.  Additionally, Ms. Miro has served multiple terms on the Board of Trustees for the national SOPHE organization and held multiple positions in the state SOPHE chapter.            
 

Matthew Asare holds a Ph.D. Health Education from the University of Cincinnati. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Public Health Department at Baylor University. His research interest is in health disparities relating to cancer control and prevention and sexual education. His scholarship is grounded in theories to facilitate pro-health behavior changes at the individual and community levels. Dr. Asare?s global research is in the prevention of HPV-related cancers in Sub-Saharan Africa