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This page taken
in its entirety from CDC Connects leadership profile
series
5/11/2004. |
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Name:
Walter W. Williams, M.D., M.P.H. |
Title:
Associate Director for Minority Health and Director, Office of
Minority Health and Health Disparities (OMHD) |
First Job at CDC:
Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) officer with the Hospital
Infections Program in NCID (1981)
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Responsibilities |
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Provides leadership for minority health activities
in support of the Office’s mission to promote health and quality of life by preventing and controlling the
disproportionate burden of disease, injury and disability among racial and ethnic populations. Core functions
of the Office, which has been in existence for more than a decade, include serving as the primary advisor to
the director of CDC on minority health initiatives and coordinating CDC activities to support the Department
of Health and Human Services minority health initiatives. Williams leads a staff of 18 as well as a small
group of Fellows. |
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Path to Public Health |
| “As a third-year medical student at Harvard
Medical School, I became interested in the concept of public health. At that time I decided to enroll in the Harvard
School of Public Health MPH program. While I was in the MPH program, I learned about CDC. After completing the MPH
requirements, I returned to complete my fourth year of medical school. During my last year of medical school training,
I spent three months working at CDC in Atlanta in an elective course and confirmed my interest in a career in pubic
health. After completing residency training in internal medicine and my board certification, I applied and was accepted
into CDC’s EIS program, a two-year fellowship in applied epidemiology. That was 1981 when I entered the EIS program. I
worked in a CDC component then called the Hospital Infections Program in the National Center for Infectious Diseases.
One of the major focuses of this unit involved identifying risks and controlling infections acquired in hospital
settings. This area became a special interest for me and I spent a fair amount of time during that assignment
working on guidelines for preventing and controlling hospital-acquired infections, which formed the basis for
many hospital infection-control programs. That activity has evolved to a standing advisory committee for CDC
called the Hospital Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee. |
| “After my EIS assignment, I spent an additional year in the Hospital Infections Program
participating in outbreak investigations. During that year I entered CDC’s Preventive Medicine Residency Program,
which I completed in 1983. In 1984, I worked as the editor of MMWR for six months. That was a very exciting learning
opportunity for me, especially in understanding what makes public health news and how to communicate public health
information to make it useful to the public. This assignment also gave me the opportunity to learn about the activities
of the entire agency as opposed to those of a single program. |
| “My next assignment was as the coordinator of a new program initiated by HHS that involved
immunization of adults. There was a need to have a coordinator of CDC’s adult immunization program. This was in
the mid to late 80s when the United States realized it had a major problem in the under immunization of adults,
primarily against influenza and pneumococcal infections. I ultimately became the chief of a branch in the
immunization area that worked on defining risk factors for low vaccination of adults, and developing strategies
and interventions to enhance the vaccination levels of adults. I spent more than a decade working in the National
Immunization Program. Between the mid 80s and mid 90s we saw very rapid decline in the spread of vaccine-preventable
diseases in the United States. It was an exciting time and a very good place to be if you wanted to participate in
focused research, translating that research into policy and program action and actually being able to see the impact
of all that effort within a very short period of time. |
| “Throughout my career as an epidemiologist there always has been a special focus on
underserved populations that grew out of my work. I had an opportunity to work on a number of special
projects targeting underserved populations. For instance, when you looked at the measles epidemic in the
United States during the eighties, our epidemiological data showed that the remaining pockets of this
disease were in two key populations -- urban Latino and African American populations. The response to
that information was targeted programs to enhance vaccination in those communities. One of the highest
rates of Hepatitis B transmission involved Alaskan Natives. I was involved in special projects in
collaboration with colleagues in the Hepatitis Branch, NCID, to better define risk factors for transmission
among Alaskan Natives and to develop targeted and effective Hepatitis B vaccination programs.” |
| “I came to my current position after my work in the National Immunization Program. My
CDC career has been a great ride. My only regret is not having a clone. That’s because there are so many
opportunities, you need more than one person to take full advantage of them all.” |
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Last Book Read |
Colored Waiting Room by
Patricia Pope (a riveting, historical-fictional account of an African American woman’s experiences serving as a security
supervisor in a Tennessee Valley Authority Nuclear Power Plant in the mid 1950s.)
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Family |
Williams is single with a seven-year-old goddaughter, Natasha, and
17 nieces and nephews. He enjoys many pastimes, including being an avid bicyclist who rides with the Metro Atlanta Cycling
Club. His other hobby since the 1970s is growing bonsai, the Japanese art of cultivating miniature trees. He also is an
amateur black-and-white portrait photographer and multi-media artist.
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What are some of the health
disparities facing our country? |
| Life
expectancy is one of our fundamental measures of health. African Americans – on average – live seven or more years
less than whites. There is also a large life expectancy discrepancy between whites and Native Americans and whites
and Alaskan Natives. Infant mortality rates are another example of a key health disparity, with infant mortality,
on average, being twice as high for African American infants as for white infants. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or
SIDS among Native Americans and Alaskan natives is more than three to four times the rate for white infants. If you
look at homicides, the homicide rate for young black men (age 15 to 34), despite overall declines in the United
States, is still above the level reported in 1990, with the gap between black men and the total population
actually increasing each year. The trend towards diabetes-related deaths is also striking. The diabetes death
rates are twice as high among African Americans as the national average. Native Americans also suffer from
diabetes at three times the average rate. Latinos suffer from diabetes at two times the average rate. |
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What are the top
priorities you are working on? |
| “One of the main activities of my Office is serving as a primary consultant for minority
health issues and assisting the work of the CIOs. We are a source of leadership for developing, revising and
implementing cross-cutting public health policy and action plans to address health disparities. CDC, as a part
of the executive branch, has a government-to-government relationship with tribal governments across the United
States. There are over 500 federally recognized tribes to whom the U.S. government has responsibilities based
on treaties as well as executive orders. Part of that response has involved a directive to CDC in 1997 to
establish a mechanism for CDC to consult with tribal governments around the country on health programs that
affect their people. My Office led an initiative to develop a CDC tribal consultation policy, which involved
setting up opportunities to consult with tribal leaders in the 12 Indian Health Service regions. |
| “We also participate with senior managers across the agency in setting priorities – one of the major activities
over the last two years has involved developing two policy documents that underpin the cross-cutting minority
health activities across the whole agency. One is entitled, “Action Items for Improving Minority Health.” This
report focuses on defining guiding and operating principles for the primary operational activities CDC undertakes.
For example, surveillance, research, program implementation, training and capacity building. We are defining
specific ways that our programs can reach those populations that are experiencing greater rates of disease
burden, injury and disability. |
| “I also currently represent CDC on the HHS Health Disparities Council. This Council was created by Secretary
Thompson earlier this year with a charge that fell out of a clear recognition that eliminating health disparities
is one of the Department’s top priorities. This is a Department-wide council that is under the leadership of the
Assistant Secretary for Health. One of the first responsibilities I had as a member of this Council was
coordinating an assessment of CDC’s existing activities that are targeting health disparities. The next
thing that this Council is charged with – and this is going on now – is to develop a strategic plan for
the Department that encompasses short- and long-term goals for addressing health disparities in key areas.
Action plans will include six-month, 12-month and two and five-year benchmarks for assessing progress.
These action plans will have a large influence on the activities that CDC is currently undertaking. We will
look at ways in which we can leverage these activities through better coordination and collaboration with
other agencies. |
| “CDC has worked very intensively in a number of program areas – one flagship program is the Racial and Ethnic
Approaches to Community Health 2010 or REACH 2010. That program uses a community participatory research
demonstration model to identify specific actions. Community groups, state public health agencies and academic
institutions come together to develop an action plan focused on eliminating one or more of either of six health
disparities in a particular community – those disparities are infant mortality, cardiovascular disease, HIV/AIDS,
breast and cervical cancer screening and management, and immunizations. Another center has implemented a very
aggressive program targeting syphilis elimination. One of the disparate rates of disease burden has been that
of syphilis particularly among African Americans in the United States. Almost every program at CDC is targeting
some form of health-disparity elimination.” |
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Source:
CDC Connects 5/11/2004,
leadership profile series. |
