Bolanle Banigbe

activist lab

‘The Future of Public Health’

DrPH student Bolanle Banigbe is working with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to create a regional system for more equitable delivery of public health services.

As the Activist Fellow on Regionalization for the Activist Lab at SPH, Bolanle Banigbe, a DrPH student studying leadership, policy, and management, worked with the Office of Local and Regional Health (OLRH) at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to create a sustainable, regional system for more equitable delivery of local public health services across the commonwealth.

Through this fellowship, Banigbe helped OLRH administer shared services for grant planning by creating a capacity-building toolkit that provides technical assistance to cities and towns receiving the grants. She also developed a survey to document existing shared services in Massachusetts that will inform efforts by local and regional public health advisory committees to develop stronger, shared-service systems.

She envisions this work impacting many aspects of population health—from food safety and post-partum home visits to tobacco control—and allowing smaller communities in the commonwealth to strengthen relationships with other towns and cities to address social determinants of health and ensure more equitable distribution of public health services.

“This multi-sectoral collaboration is the future of public health,” she says. “I imagine a future where we work together to focus our resources on upstream determinants of health as a means of preventing illness and maximizing community wellness.”