Devlin elected to Action for Children North Carolina board
| January 04, 2012 | |
Dr. Leah Devlin
Leah Devlin, DDS, MPH, Gillings Visiting Professor of health policy and management at UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, has been elected to serve a two-year term on the Action for Children North Carolina board of directors. Action for Children North Carolina is a leading statewide, nonpartisan, nonprofit policy research and advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring that North Carolina children are healthy, safe, well-educated and have every opportunity for success. A native of Buies Creek, N.C., Devlin has championed and improved the health of her fellow North Carolinians for more than 25 years. As a dental student at UNC, she completed a rotation with the Wake County (N.C.) Health Department, an experience that initiated a lifetime interest in public health. She received a Doctor of Dental Surgery degree and a Master of Public Health degree from UNC and served as North Carolina’s State Health Director from 2001 to 2009. At UNC, she was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and the public health school’s honor society. In 2008, she received UNC’s Distinguished Alumna Award. “I am very pleased to be invited to serve on this board which has such a strong commitment to all children,” Devlin said. “Given the tough economy – as well as the demographic and growth trends in North Carolina – children’s success is more critical than ever to our state’s future.” Barbara Bradley, Action for Children’s president and chief executive officer, called Devlin “an amazing woman and expert in public health.” Devlin’s expertise, Bradley said, “will be invaluable as Action for Children works to protect health insurance coverage for children in health benefit exchanges and to craft new public policies to improve the health and well-being of our state’s 2.6 million children and young people.” Among Action for Children North Carolina’s legislative successes are laws for graduated driver’s licenses, child booster seats and bicycle helmets; the Health Start Program (children’s health insurance); a cell phone ban for those driving under the graduated driver’s license law; and the juvenile expunction law. These policies are having a measurable impact upon the well-being of children. For example:
UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, director of communications, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu. |
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