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Elmer R. Freeman, M.S.W., Term: 2007–2011
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 Mr. Elmer Freeman is the Executive Director of the Center for Community Health Education Research and Service, Inc. (CCHERS), and an adjunct assistant professor and Director of Urban Health Programs and Policy for Bouvé College of Health Sciences at Northeastern University. CCHERS is a network of 15 academic community health centers providing health care access for underserved patients in Boston. Prior to this, Mr. Freeman was Executive Director of the Whittier Street Health Center for 17 years. He is the co-chair of Critical MASS, a multi-organizational, multicultural, multi-community, statewide coalition to eliminate racial and ethnic health disparities in Massachusetts.
Mr. Freeman is a recognized expert in the implementation of models of community-based participatory research (CBPR) and served as such for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Evidence Report No. 99, Community-Based Participatory Research: Assessing the Evidence, published in July 2004. He has coauthored a journal article on this topic, which was published in the Journal of Urban Health in November 2006. He is also actively involved in the development of CBPR partnerships between academic medical centers and the diverse communities of Boston. He is an advisory board member of the Tufts University Community Research Center and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Community Research Network, and he is a cofounder of the Community Health and Academic Medicine Partnership with Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Mr. Freeman is involved nationally with Community-Campus Partnerships for Health, the American Public Health Association, and the National Association of Community Health Centers.
Mr. Freeman has made more than 40 presentations at conferences and scientific meetings in the past seven years, including several keynotes. He is an accomplished facilitator with experience bringing consensus from groups with conflicting interests and serves as a consultant to schools and programs in public health in their efforts to promote community engagement and scholarship in research partnerships with communities.
Mr. Freeman received his M.S.W. from Boston College Graduate School for Social Work and is working toward a doctoral degree. He lives in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston with his wife of 30 years, Carlene, and their four-year-old grandson, Jakhari, who is their personal anti-aging agent.
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