An alumna of Crenshaw Christian Center schools is being honored for her work in women’s health, including maternal health and maternal-fetal care, according to a July 1 article in the Los Angeles Sentinel.
Her name is Anika Washington, and she is a professor at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. She has been honored with a lifetime achievement award for her dedication to women’s health, according to the weekly newspaper.
Washington, a 2022 graduate of the Fielding School, “has been recognized for her work in health policy at the school,” which is “ranked . . . among the Top 10 public health graduate schools in the United States,” the Sentinel reported.
According to the Sentinel article, Washington graduated with a Master of Public Health degree from in the Fielding School’s Department of Health Policy and Management (HPM) and was named a Public Health Impact Fellow at the school’s 2022 Student Academic Honors and Awards Ceremony at UCLA.
The award, which includes a stipend, stems from her achievements in the MPH program, including her work studying the healthcare needs of formerly incarcerated individuals, or FIIs.
“Prison inmates have access to medical, dental, and mental health services while incarcerated, but services stop upon their release, which can be harmful to those who rely on medication and other treatments,” Washington said. “They face a disproportionately high risk of mortality within the first two weeks of release, with the leading health-related causes of death being heart disease, cancer and suicide.”
“Washington, whose hometown is Los Angeles, graduated from Frederick K. C. Price III High School in South Los Angeles and earned her BS in Global Health in 2018 from the University of Southern California,” the Sentinel reported.
“At UCLA, she has served as an admissions student ambassador and member of the Public Health Student Association, HPM Student Association, and Students of Color for Public Health, and is an inductee into the Upsilon Phi Delta National Honor Society. She also served the department as a student representative in the Health Policy and Management Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee.”
“Her achievements in the program are many, including being part of the team to win first place in the UCLA Center for Healthcare Management Case Competition,” said Dr. Julienne Jose-Chen, the Fielding School’s assistant dean for student services.
“It’s this sort of commitment to excellence, while being able to communicate why and how public health is a field which can have real impacts on seemingly intractable problems, that led the evaluators to name Anika a public health impact fellow.”
