Medical school welcomes Camille Edwards, new public health workforce and community engagement director

Camille Edwards

Camille Edwards has joined the Boonshoft School of Medicine’s Department of Population and Public Health Sciences as its new public health workforce and community engagement director. She comes to the medical school after serving in various public health roles throughout the Indianapolis area.

Edwards previously worked in roles at Indianapolis Healthy Start, Indiana Minority Health Coalition and Powerful Health. She has extensive experience in public health and engagement.

Edwards was attracted to her new position at the Boonshoft School of Medicine because of the storied history of Wright State University’s Master of Public Health program. She has worked closely with its graduates during her career.

“Being that it was the first M.P.H. program in Southwest Ohio, it is an honor to be a part of a trailblazing team. I am also eager to work with the program because of the concentrations offered,” Edwards said. “The concentrations of health promotion and education and population health closely tie to my past experiences.”

At Indianapolis Healthy Start, Edwards worked as a health educator. She managed a smoking cessation program for pregnant women and oversaw all aspects of the Baby & Me Tobacco Free program grant. Edwards led sessions, made home visits and completed quarterly reports to the Indiana Department of Health.

“I was responsible for all of the program promotion and had to find creative ways to raise awareness of the program,” Edwards said. “I helped develop community partnerships to help better serve our clients.”

She managed an ongoing client caseload of at least 45 clients and maintained partnerships with public health organizations throughout the region. Edwards was a member of the Smoke-Free Indy Coalition, the Fetal Infant Mortality Review-Community Action Team and the Fetal Infant Mortality Case Review Team.

Her efforts helped to increase full-term births of program participants in the program from 12.5% to 17.24% within a year. Healthy birth weights for program participants also increased from 17.65% to 33.33%.

“My background is in health promotion and education and addressing health disparities. I have a passion for helping people to make desired healthy lifestyle changes,” Edwards said. “Through this role, I hope to help fulfill the mission of the university by using workforce development efforts to not only better prepare students for the workforce, but to also expose them to the many opportunities for their career development here in the Dayton area.”