The 13th annual presentation of the CSTE Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) National Award for Outstanding Epidemiology Practice in Addressing Racial and Ethnic Disparities took place in a virtual ceremony held Thursday, November 5, 2020.

 

The winner of this year’s RWJF award is Mariko Toyoji, MPH, an epidemiologist at Public Health – Seattle & King County. Her presentation entitled, “Communicating Local Racial Health Disparities Through Data Visualizations: The King County Health Disparities Dashboard,” was chosen from a group of five finalists selected by the RWJF award committee.  In her work, Mariko helped create a data visualization dashboard to gather data across several social determinants of health indicators that were analyzed at the county level by race and ethnicity. This dashboard provides public access to local data on health disparities for public health professionals, community-based organizations, and community members.

 

2020 RWJF Finalists

The RWJF Disparities Award is both self-nominated during the online abstract submission process and eligible for nomination during the abstract review period. Only abstracts accepted for presentation during the CSTE Annual Conference that focus primarily on racial/ethnic health disparities are eligible.

The CSTE RWJF Award Committee identified the following five finalists from eligible abstracts submitted to the 2020 CSTE Annual Conference:

• June Bancroft, MPH, CIC (Oregon Health Authority), for her presentation, “Collecting Additional Race, Ethnicity, Ability, Language and Housing Status for Communicable Disease.”
• Chiao-Wen Lan, PhD, MPH (Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board), for her presentation, “Racial Disparities in Opioid Use Disorder Hospitalizations among American Indians and Alaska Natives.”
• Heidi Lovejoy, MSc (Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board), for her presentation, “Emergency Department Visits for Drug Overdose among American Indian and Alaska Natives in Washington State.”
• Darcy Phelan-Emrick, DrPH, MHS (Baltimore City Health Department), for her presentation, “Race and Sex Disparities in Life Expectancy Due to Smoking-Related Causes of Death, Baltimore City, 2013-2017.”
• Mariko Toyoji, MPH (Public Health – Seattle & King County), for her presentation, “Communicating Local Racial Health Disparities Through Data Visualizations: The King County Health Disparities Dashboard.”

2020 RWJF Award Committee Members
Each year, the award review committee includes many experts in disparities research and surveillance that have volunteered their time to participate in this selection process. The role of the committee is to review and score the eligible abstracts, select award finalists, then review and score the finalists’ presentations to determine the RWJF Award winner.

 

The 2020 review committee included the following CSTE members:

• Duc J. Vugia, MD, MPH, Chief of the Infectious Diseases Branch, California Department of Public Health.
• James L. Hadler, MD, MPH, a senior infectious disease and medical epidemiology consultant to the Connecticut and Yale Emerging Infections Programs, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and CSTE
• Elizabeth L. Lewis-Michl, PhD, Director of the Division of Environmental Health Assessment in the Center for Environmental Health, New York State Department of Health
• Robert Graff, PhD, Chronic Disease Epidemiology and Surveillance Director in the Division of Public Health, Idaho Department of Health and Welfare.
• Dean Seneca, MPH, Executive Director of Seneca Scientific Solutions, a consulting organization that provides tribal nations and other agencies with assistance in strategic planning, epidemiology, and health research
• Alfreda Holloway-Beth, PhD, MS, Director of Epidemiology, Cook County Department of Public Health.

While the 2020 CSTE Annual Conference was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the five finalists and members of the CSTE RWJF Award Committee graciously agreed to move forward with planning a virtual ceremony to present the 2020 RWJF Award. The virtual ceremony featured remarks from Duc Vugia, Dwayne Proctor (RWJF Senior Advisor to the President), Sherri Davidson (CSTE President), and Janet Hamilton (CSTE Executive Director). Each finalist presented their work in a presentation format of nine minutes each. A recorded version of the ceremony can be viewed here.

 

For more information on the CSTE/RWJF annual award, visit https://www.cste.org/page/RWJFAward.