2007/2008 CPH Magazine - College of Public Health - University of ...

Health Policy and ManagementPublic Health Policy Was What Made Me Tick“Life has not been a straight road forme, to say the least,” says Heather Edelblute,who this fall became the College ofPublic Health’s first doctoral student inHealth Policy and Management (DrPH).Indeed, she started with an informationtechnology degree from the Collegeof William and Mary—study somethingthat will get you a job, her father alwayssaid—and ended up as far away from atraditional IT job as she could.“So, what did I do with this great ITdegree after college?” she recounts. “Notgo to D.C. or New York like most IT majors—Iended up packing up my compactcar with my dog and moving to a bordertown in Arizona to fulfill a dream andwork on a ranch.”It was a serendipitous choice. Livingin a remote area near the Sonoran desert,she’d find the echoes of the nightly activityof undocumented immigrants makingthe dangerous trek across borders: footprintsof bare feet in the sand, or discardedwater bottles.“All of this opened my eyes to the realitiesand inequities present in the world,through the lens of a barren desert wheresurvival was always a factor,” she says.She decided that she needed to exploreher writing and critical thinking skills, soshe picked up another degree, arriving atUGA’s Grady College of Journalism andMass Communication in 1999 for graduateschool.While in school, she worked in theCollege of Education’s Public InformationOffice. After graduating in 2001, shemoved to San Antonio and balanced twoseemingly disparate activities: working inSpanish radio while maintaining a steadystream of freelance work for the Collegeof Education.“Working in radio made me realizethat I am a ‘non-profit kinda girl,’ and“All of this openedmy eyes to therealities andinequities presentin the world”- Heather Edelblutedidn’t get the benefit I was looking for byworking in radio,” she says.So, she returned to Athens and theCollege of Education to work as a grantwriter and public relations coordinator forthe Center for Latino Achievement andSuccess in Education. Edelblute helpedsecure funding to give international experiencesto U.S. educators of Latinostudents in Costa Rica. She also was ableto fund her own global learning communitybetween teachers and students inCosta Rica and Georgia, in which the studentslearned about the global economythrough projects on coffee.Edelblute enjoyed her work, she says,but “I had known for quite some time thatI wanted to move into public health.”In 2005, she began working as awriter and editor at the National Centerfor Chronic Disease Prevention andHealth Promotion at the Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention. There, sheworked with grantees across the countryon marketing materials for how states, Indiantribes and territories used PreventiveHealth and Health Services Block Grantfunds.“All of this made me realize that publichealth was where I wanted to be, andspecifically, that public health policy waswhat made me tick,” she says. “I also realizedthat I needed to get a graduate degreein public health to go anywhere withit. I didn’t want to get another master’sdegree and was at a point in my life whereI was ready to move forward and pursuemy doctorate.”She wasted no time. Before the semesterbegan, she had already worked ona grant and visited Costa Rica and Nicaraguafor three weeks on a study abroadprogram, visiting clinics and learningmore about the two health systems.After a number of life experiences,Edelblute says her career goal is now clear:to work for an international public healthorganization doing policy research.“This is an important goal for me,because it gives me purpose in what Ido. Over the years, I have realized thatis what I want from a job and from life ingeneral,” she says.—Mary Jessica Hammes12 College of Public Health