LouisianaCan.org | LOUISIANA CAN END THE HIV EPIDEMIC

The Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and Education at Xavier University of Louisiana College of Pharmacy believes Louisiana Can end the HIV epidemic.

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ABOUT

The Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and Education (CMHDRE) at Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA) in collaboration with the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine is taking the lead in addressing the obstacles faced by Black communities in the Southern United States when it comes to HIV testing, treatment, and ongoing care. With community partners and a dedicated HIV Health Equity Taskforce providing strategic direction, the CMHDRE is investigating policies, health systems, and gaps in data for persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) that prevent equitable health outcomes. The Center’s strategic solutions aim to improve access to care, provide comprehensive training for healthcare providers in HIV, promote early engagement with clinicians, identify areas of risk, provide advocacy and education on policies, and assess legislation that impacts PLWHA. Louisiana Can end the HIV epidemic, and the CMHDRE is committed to providing education, partnerships, resources, advocacy, and active community involvement to make it possible.

Louisiana HIV Health Equity Task Force – Advisory Committee

Name	Title	Institution
Lance Okeke	HIV/ID Physician & Assistant Professor of Medicine	Duke University
Jasmine Davis	Black Women of Trans Experience	Ochsner
Russell Brewer	Research Associate Professor	Louisiana Public Health Institute
Dana Gray	Director for the LA AETC	LSU Health Science
Gjvar Payne	Executive Director	Out the Box / Baton Rouge
Ryanne Clarke	Clinical Director	Priority Health Care / HIV Women’s Health
Dorian Alexander	PLWHA	LA CaTS CAB member
Erika Sugimori	Services Manager	Office of Public Health
Ollie Christian	Program Director of HIV/AIDS Prevention	Southern University
Charles Haywood	Program Associate	End the HIV Epidemic
Christal Hurst	Working with PLWHA	Frontline Legal Services
Samuel Burgess	STD/HIV Program Director	Louisiana Department of Health
Louise Bienvenu	Co-Executive Director	Frontline Legal Services
Nathan Cisneros	HIV Criminalization Analyst	Williams Institute
DeAnn Gruber	Director of the Bureau of Infectious Diseases	Office of Public Health
Mandisa Moore-O’Neal	Executive Director of The Center for HIV Law and Policy	Louisiana Coalition on Criminalization and Health
Rheneisha Robertson	Executive Director	Covenant House
Jenny Holl	Program Manager	Women with a Vision

RESOURCES

Louisiana Can Infographic

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Louisiana Excerpt from CHLP's Sourcebook on HIV Criminalization in the U.S.

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Louisiana Can HIV Facts

Let’s Stop HIV Together

Louisiana Health Hub

Smoking and HIV

Georgia Thrives

Health Equity Tracker

The Health Equity Tracker is a platform designed to provide comprehensive data and insights on health disparities across different communities in the United States. It aims to highlight and address the inequities in health outcomes and access to healthcare services among various demographic groups, emphasizing the social determinants of health. For more detailed information, please visit their website by clicking the button below.

Health Equity Tracker

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Kathleen B. Kennedy, PharmD. – Professor and Dean

Director, Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and Education

Dr. Kathleen Kennedy is the founding director of the Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and Education at Xavier University of Louisiana College of Pharmacy where she continues to provide leadership in the development of the research infrastructure necessary to support health disparities research, education, and training. Holding the Malcolm Ellington Endowed professorship in Health Disparities, Dr. Kennedy has worked for over 20 years on research focused on community engagement, eliminating health disparities, and achieving health equity. In 2020, she was appointed to the Executive Committee of the Louisiana Health Equity Task Force by Governor John Bel Edwards. There she worked on a subcommittee which worked to redesign the state health status dashboard to emphasize the importance of using health informatics and data storytelling to engage the community to improve health outcomes. In 2023, honoring the legacy of former congressional leader and civil rights icon John Lewis, the NIMH established the John Lewis NIMHD Research Endowment. Dr. Kennedy and her team at Xavier successfully competed for this award totally $20M over five years. With this funding, the Center will establish the Precision Medicine, Education, Data Informatics and Community Translation (PREDICT) Institute, a comprehensive programmatic initiative, created to develop a holistic and replicable framework for the utilization of electronic health data and community translation to affect the decision-making process to improve health outcomes.

To encourage interprofessional collaboration to address health disparities, in 2007 Dr. Kennedy established the first national health disparities conference for mid-level providers to address the successful translation of research into effective models of practice to impact policy and change behaviors in the broader community. This conference continues annually.

Dr. Kennedy earned the Doctor of Pharmacy degree from the University of California, San Francisco and completed a residency in Pharmacy Practice at the University of California Hospitals and Clinics with her research emphasis on infectious diseases. She served as a Co-Principal Investigator for the Tulane-Xavier NCI Cancer Health Disparities grant and Director of the Community Engagement and Outreach Core for the Louisiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Center for the state of Louisiana.

She was recognized nationally, along with research colleagues at Xavier, with the Rufus A. Lyman award by the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy for a publication on the use of an instrument to assess the perceived level of cultural competence of students to guide curriculum development and by the American Society of Health System Pharmacists-Association of Black Health System Pharmacists (ASHP-ABHP) with the Joint Leadership Award for exceptional leadership to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare.

Dr. Kennedy was appointed Dean of the College of Pharmacy in 2010.

George Nawas, PharmD
Clinical Associate Professor
Xavier University of Louisiana College of Pharmacy

Dr. George Nawas, a graduate with a Doctor of Pharmacy (Pharm.D.) degree from the Lebanese American University, has completed his PGY1 and PGY2 training at Banner – University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ. Currently, he holds the position of Clinical Associate Professor at Xavier University of Louisiana's (XULA) College of Pharmacy and is certified as a pharmacotherapy specialist and an HIV Pharmacist. Dr. Nawas coordinates and teaches in the Infectious Diseases Therapeutics modules at Xavier and has introduced the elective course "HIV/AIDS in At-Risk Communities" into Xavier’s College of Pharmacy curriculum as of Spring 2023. His clinical practice site is the University Medical Center of New Orleans, where he trains pharmacy residents and 3rd & 4th-year pharmacy students on Acute Care/Internal Medicine rotations.

Dr. Nawas serves as a commissioner on the Louisiana Governor’s Commission on HIV, AIDS & Hepatitis C Education, Prevention, and Treatment. Additionally, he is a member of the HIV Criminalization study resolution (HR-130) Task Force. Dr. Nawas is also dedicated to research, focusing on addressing HIV disparities in marginalized communities, with the overarching goal of actively contributing to ending the HIV epidemic, particularly in Louisiana and other Southern states.

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LaKeisha Williams, PharmD, MPH
Clinical Associate Professor
Xavier University of Louisiana College of Pharmacy
Director of Community Engagement and Outreach (CMHDRE)

Dr. LaKeisha Williams earned a Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Pharmacy from Xavier University of Louisiana, and a Master of Science in Public Health from Tulane University School of Public Health. Following her graduate studies, she completed a Pharmacy Practice Residency at Xavier University, and a NIH Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women’s Health Research (BIRCWH) Fellowship at Tulane University.

Dr. Lakeisha Williams is a Clinical Associate Professor in the College of Pharmacy at Xavier University of Louisiana. She serves as the Director of Community Engagement and Outreach for the Center for Minority Health and Health Disparities Research and Education and Director for the Community Engagement and Outreach Core for the NIH funded Research Centers in Minority Institutions and Community Engagement Core for the Louisiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Center.

Dr. Lakeisha Williams serves as an advisor, mentor, instructor and preceptor to pharmacy students and residents in the College of Pharmacy, and students in the Physician Assistant Program, both at Xavier University of Louisiana.

Dr. Lakeisha Williams has been instrumental in developing campus and community initiatives focused on HIV education. Dr. Williams is actively expanding community partnerships to include faith-based organizations that will promote efforts to end the epidemic of HIV in minority and underserved populations including Women and children.

Dr. Lakeisha Williams serves as one of the Principal Investigators for the Louisiana Community Engagement Alliance (LA-CEAL). She is the Orleans Director of the Louisiana Pharmacists Association, a board member of the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship and Melia Neighborhood Association, a member of the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists, the American Society of Health-Systems Pharmacists, and the American Pharmacists Association. She is a recipient of the Cardinal Generation Rx Award, American Federation for Medical Research Faculty Travel Award, Preceptor of the Year Award, and the Pharmacists Mutual Distinguished Young Pharmacists Award.

Okon, Marian–Public Health Sci_asst prof_0425sm

Marian Okon, PhD, MPH Assistant Professor

Xavier University of Louisiana College of Arts & Sciences

Dr. Marian Okon is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA). She is a public health specialist and educator with over 10 years of practice, both locally and internationally, in academic, research and healthcare settings. Dr. Okon’s research focus is to examine the influence of environmental, socioeconomic factors, and other underlying mechanisms on health outcomes in vulnerable populations and uses evidence-based interventions to remove barriers to care and address health disparities. She holds Master of Public Health (MPH) and Doctor of Philosophy in Public Health Degrees from the University of Glasgow, United Kingdom.

She is currently serving as the Data Asset Mapping Coordinator for the Center for Minority Health Disparities Research In Education at XULA. Dr. Okon has taught several infectious disease modules in her Introduction to Epidemiology Course at XULA. Additionally, she is the Director of the M.S. Health Informatics Program at XULA.

ABOUT

Kathleen Kennedy, PharmD. Professor and Dean

George Nawas, PharmD Clinical Associate Professor

LaKeisha Williams, PharmD, MPH Clinical Associate Professor

Marian Okon, PhD, MPH Assistant Professor

Louisiana HIV Health Equity Task Force – Advisory Committee

RESOURCES

Louisiana Can Infographic

Louisiana Excerpt from CHLP's Sourcebook on HIV Criminalization in the U.S.

Louisiana Can HIV Facts

Health Equity Tracker

UPCOMING HEALTH AWARENESS EVENTS

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