On the Road: Beyond Ferguson: Social Injustice and the Health of the Public with Profesor Harold Cox.

Army and Navy Club
901 17^th Street NW
Washington, DC

Harold Cox is associate dean for public health practice and associate professor of community health sciences at Boston University School of Public Health. In these roles, he supervises the student practicum program and academic/community practice relationships. He also teaches 2 courses titled: Public Health Response to Emergencies” and “Cases in Public Health Management.” Trained as a social worker, he has more than 30 years of experience in direct service, administration, and advocacy in a variety of public health care settings. During the period 2009-11, Cox served as a senior consultant to Commissioner John Auerbach at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Harold Cox currently chairs the statewide committee that is exploring regionalization as an approach for redesigning the local public health system in Massachusetts. He is principal investigator of the Practice-Based Research Network which receives significant funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He is principal investigator and director of PEER (Partnership for Effective Emergency Response). This initiative brings together more than 400 hospitals, health departments and other health agencies to coordinate communication during emergencies. Mr. Cox is the managing director of the Massachusetts Workforce Training Institute, which develops virtual training activities for public health personnel in all 351 towns and cities throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Harold Cox is an appointee by Governor Deval Patrick to the Massachusetts Public Health Council. He is an appointee of Mayor Tom Menino to the board of the Boston Public Health Commission, and a member of the board of the Denta-Quest Oral Health Foundation. He is the past president of Massachusetts Public Health Association, past president of the Multicultural AIDS Coalition, and past chair of the Boston AIDS Planning Council. Prior to joining Boston University, Harold Cox served for 10 years as chief public health officer for the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was responsible for managing all aspects of the city’s health department. During his tenure, Cox led the process to make Cambridge a non-smoking city. He helped to organize Clean Air Works, a regional initiative in 19 Massachusetts towns to promote smoke-free work environments. This initiative was instrumental in moving Massachusetts to become the 3rd smoke-free state in the country. While in Cambridge, Mr. Cox worked with the Cambridge Kid’s Council and Agenda for Children to develop programs addressing literacy and out-of-school-time. He developed a regional public health consortium to coordinate emergency preparedness and disaster response. He also started the Cambridge Advanced Practice Center for Emergency Preparedness, which developed policies and program implementation for 27 communities surrounding Cambridge.