As Public Health National Center for Innovations’ (PHNCI) director of Innovation, Reena Chudgar brings more than 15 years of direct public health experience to her efforts to support health departments and their communities in using innovation as a tool for transformation and to create equitable opportunity for optimal health. Her work centers around strategy and program implementation, and she is passionate about social and systems change, addressing root causes of historical and current racial and health inequities, and local and people-centered decision-making.
Reena aims to support public health by engaging in dynamic partnerships, fostering cross-sector collaboration, looking to community expertise, and advocating for public health needs. She previously directed the National Association of County and City Health Officials’ (NACCHO) Performance & Systems team. She has prior experience working internationally in both Ghana and Kiribati. Reena earned a Master’s in Public Health and a Bachelor’s in Chemistry from Emory University.
Reena is supporting the 21st Century Learning Community, a group of statewide public health systems focused on modernizing and transforming public health. These efforts include conversations and truth telling around the systems we have and how they were not created for all, and the work that needs to be done to truly reimagine public health so that it is created with every person in mind, and creates opportunities for equitable public health. She is looking forward to engaging in conversations with the member states, and learning together around truth, racial and health equity, and community transformation.
Post-Institute: Transformative Action Plans
Reena Chudgar described the CoHLI experience as providing lightbulb moments that helped to sharpen her perspective a bit more in focus. She found that she was able to learn from colleagues because of the similarities and differences in levels of work regarding the implementation of their programs. However, the overlap helped her reimagine public health with having the community at the center. She focuses on grounding work in community experiences and wisdom and bridging relationships with the government. She will use healing circles and dialogue to increase relationship building, cultivate spaces for creativity, and use these tools to redesign the community that includes a shared vision and shared power. She’s excited to partner with CoHLI cohort peers to codesign this platform for a collaboration of communities centered on equity.
