Joyce Essien, MD, MBA, FAACP
Dr. Essien is a retired Captain, US Public Health Service, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a retired founding Director , Visiting Associate Professor, Center for Public Health Practice, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University; Board Certified in Anatomic and Clinical Pathology; and a registered civil mediator, State of Georgia.
Culminating a career that spans academic medicine, the private health sector and public health, the current focus of her work explores the complex dynamics occurring at the intersection between cross- sectoral health promoting assets and social systems to generate health, and how and where to intervene within the system to optimize health and equity at the population level. Dr. Essien currently serves on the Advisory Committee for the Public Health 2030 Project for the Institute for the Future, to develop scenarios describing expectable, challenging, and visionary futures of public health in the U.S. This work is funded by the Kresge and RWJ Foundations to consider uncertainties, trends, and forces that will influence the health of the public, public health agencies and other providers within the healthcare system. She also serves as a co- facilitator for the Organ Procurement Transplant Network (OPTN) Deceased Donor Potential Study, a HRSA commissioned study of deceased donor potential for transplant organs in the US. Dr. Essien is a leadership coach in The Center for Health Leadership and Practice of the Public Health Institute providing coaching support for teams who successfully competed for participation in National Leadership Academy for the Public’s Health , a one year action-learning, training and leadership development program to strengthen cross- sectoral leadership, to drive the adoption of evidence-based practices; better align medicine and public health and improve health outcomes through sustainable systems change, funded by the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Dr. Essien is co-author of the Public Health Competency Handbook- Optimizing Individual and Organizational Performance for the Public’s Health (2003) and recently concluded service on the Committee on Public Health Strategies, Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2009-2012
which produced 3 reports:
National Research Council. For the Public's Health: The Role of Measurement in Action and Accountability. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2011.
National Research Council. For the Public's Health: Revitalizing Law and Policy to Meet New Challenges. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2011.
For the Public's Health: Investing in a Healthier Future. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2012.
Dr. Essien has served on the Boards of Trustees of the Bon Secours Hospital System, Southwest Hospital and Medical Center, the Atlanta Regional Health Forum and ZAP Asthma Consortium Inc. She served as invited members of three national initiatives to improve population health outcomes by realigning public, private and community health assets; and served on the Board of Directors and Advisory Committees of the Association for Community Health Improvement of the American Hospital Association ; two National Advisory Committees for the Institute for Alternative Futures: Disparity Reducing Advances and Biomonitoring Futures Project; and the Advisory Committee for the American Health Information Management Association .
Dr. Essien is recipient of the 2011 Physician of the Year Award from the Atlanta Medical Association; a recipient of the 2008 Excellence in Medicine Award from the American Medical Association Foundation; and a member of the team that received the 2008 Inaugural Applied Systems Thinking Award from the Applied Systems Thinking Institute for the magnitude of the problems that were being addressed (chronic disease syndemics and health system transformation). The ZAP Asthma Consortium, Inc., co- founded by Dr Essien, is the recipient of the Rosalyn and Jimmy Carter Partnership Award for service and contributions to the public’s health. Dr. Essien was a recipient in l999 of the Women in Government Award from Good Housekeeping Magazine, The Ford Foundation, and The Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. She is also the recipient of the Thomas Sellars Award for teaching excellence from the Rollins School of Public Health and the Unsung Heroine Award from Emory University.
