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American Public Health Association Names New Associate Executive Director for Public Affairs and Advocacy

Posted on: Tuesday, 25 January 2005, 12:00 CST

WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The American Public Health Association (APHA) today announced the addition of Susan L. Polan, Ph.D., as its new associate executive director for public affairs and advocacy. In this newly expanded management position, Polan will oversee the Association's departments of government relations and affiliate affairs, communications and membership.

Polan will be responsible for planning and directing APHA's legislative, regulatory and legal activities and communicating those initiatives and Association news to members and the public. She will also oversee and coordinate membership recruitment and retention and Affiliate, Caucus and Section relations. Among her duties, Polan will participate in legislative hearings, develop Association position statements and supervise the coordination of membership advocacy. She will be a chief advisor to APHA Executive Director Georges C. Benjamin, M.D., FACP.

"Susan's exemplary leadership skills, health advocacy expertise and knowledge of the legislative agenda will help the Association improve the nation's health," Benjamin said. "She will ably lead several of our key areas of outreach and member engagement as we advance the mission of APHA. We are very fortunate to have Susan on our team."

Polan has more than a decade of experience in public health, government relations and associations. Early in her career, she drafted legislation for Senate consideration on tobacco control and Safe and Drug Free Schools as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Congressional science and technology fellow for the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee. She later served as director of federal government relations at the American Cancer Society and as president and senior advisor of Partnership for Prevention, where she represented the nonprofit to government officials, congressional offices, the Congressional Prevention Coalition and other partners. She later worked as a health policy consultant whose projects included encouraging an increase in funding for environmental health concerns and grant writing for the Cerebral Palsy Ability Center.

Most recently, Polan was director of government relations at Trust for America's Health, a public health advocacy organization, where she successfully advocated for new funding for a nationwide health tracking network. There, she served as lead staff lobbyist to Congress, federal agencies and the administration on priority issues, including local public health infrastructure development and chronic disease prevention.

Polan earned her Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She later earned a Master of Science degree in health psychology from San Diego State University and a doctorate in social ecology from the University of California, Irvine.

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The American Public Health Association, the oldest organization of public health professionals, represents more than 50,000 members from over 50 public health occupations. More information is available at http://www.apha.org.

http://www.usnewswire.com

Source: U.S. Newswire

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