Tips For Being Your Own Best Advocate…Lived Experience With Abby Charles

On July 22, 2021 we hosted our sixth Self-Advocacy webinar.  Lupus Canada was joined by Abby Charles who presented “Tips For Being Your Own Best Advocate… Lived Experience With Abby Charles”.

Abby Charles is a lupus warrior who serves as a Director at the Institute for Public Health Innovation (IPHI), The public health institute for Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia. In this role, Ms. Charles works with a variety of sectors and stakeholders including: Elected officials, health departments, planning agencies, and community-based organizations and other key stakeholders to design and implement policy, systems, and environmental changes aimed at improving public health.

With over 15 years’ experience as a public health practitioner, Ms. Charles provides expertise and oversight for an extensive portfolio of health equity-focused programs including grassroots public health workforce development, community health worker initiatives, training and technical assistance to promote racially equitable communities, health in all policies strategies, and multi-sector collaborative development to achieve public health transformation.

A dynamic speaker, trainer and facilitator, Ms. Charles offers workshops and technical assistance to organizations and coalitions throughout the United States to highlight the historic and present-day impact of structural racism and other forms of oppression on health inequities across populations and communities and the interconnected impact of the social and structural determinants of health (education, housing, transportation, where people live) on population health outcomes.. These workshops offer tools to improve health and racial equity in policies, systems, environments, practices and decision-making.

Prior to her role at IPHI, Ms. Charles served as Program Coordinator at the Women’s Collective, a nationally recognized organization providing care, prevention, and advocacy services for women, girls and their families living with and at risk for HIV in the Metropolitan DC area. At TWC, Ms. Charles built her experience in peer navigation, women’s health, gender-based violence and HIV.

Ms. Charles is appointed as an Adjunct Instructor of Clinical Research and Leadership at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. She is a graduate of the George Washington University with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science and a Master of Public Health in Public Health. She presently serves on the Washington, DC Mayor’s Commission on Caribbean Community Affairs, the board of The Well Project, the Bishop Anstey High School Alumnae Association of Washington, DC, the Community Advisory Boards of the DC Center for AIDS Research and the GW Cancer Center, and serves as interim chair of the Trinidad and Tobago Diaspora Association Network.

Abby Charles, Director at the Institute for Public Health Innovation (IPHI), The Public Health Institute for Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia.