The APHA Committee on Affiliates presented three awards honoring outstanding contributions to public health at its annual awards ceremony and reception in October.
The event, which took place during APHA’s 136th Annual Meeting in San Diego, culminated with the presentation of the Award for Excellence, the Chair’s Citation — which is chosen by the CoA chair — and the Committee on Affiliates 2008 Commendation.
For demonstrating outstanding leadership in advocating and promoting public health, the Committee on Affiliates 2008 Award for Excellence went to Wisconsin Public Health Association member and former CoA Chair Elizabeth A. Zelazek, MS.
Zelazek
“APHA has been very good to me, and I hope I have been able to give something back to APHA,” said Zelazek upon accepting the award.
During many years of service to the Wisconsin Affiliate, Zelazek has served as a board member and Affiliate president. She presently serves as the Wisconsin Affiliate’s representative to APHA’s Governing Council.
Zelazek, who is an APHA member, has represented Wisconsin in several national programs and is an active member in the Great Lakes Public Health Coalition, which includes the public health associations of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin. In addition to serving as CoA chair in 2007, Zelazek was a member of the APHA Executive Board and served on the APHA Affiliate Capacity-Building Initiative’s Advisory Committee.
Also honored during the CoA ceremony in October was APHA member Gerald Ohta, who received the Chair’s Citation.
“I am very humbled because I know the kind of people who have received the Chair’s Citation before,” Ohta said.
Ohta, who served as president of the Hawaii Affiliate from 1980 to 1982, has contributed to public health efforts in Hawaii for more than 30 years. He is a former member of the APHA Committee on Affiliates, the APHA Nominating Committee and the APHA Joint Policy Committee, and has served as the Hawaii Affiliate’s representative to APHA’s Governing Council since 1999.
Ohta
Ohta has distinguished himself as a key link between Hawaii’s public health work force and APHA leadership, and has worked to bring attention to the unique public health issues that confront them and their counterparts in Alaska, according to his nominators.
Also during the ceremony, the editorial board of the Michigan Journal of Public Health and its publisher, the Michigan Public Health Association, received a Committee on Affiliates 2008 Commendation for their work to make the journal a reality.
Greg Cline, PhD, founded the biannual Michigan Journal of Public Health while serving as president of the Michigan Public Health Association in December 2006. The journal’s editorial board was “honored” to receive the commendation, he told The Nation’s Health.
“For myself, it was satisfying that we received the award as a group,” Cline said. “From my position of having suggested and led the process, I am acutely aware that (the journal) succeeded as a large group effort, not through any individual effort.”
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
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