With 87 graduates since its inception in 2014, the DrPH Program has developed an illustrious, talented group of public health professionals who have taken their DrPH degree and have become public health leaders.
We recently reached out to Amy Bantham, DrPH ’20, to find out where her public health career has taken her and the current work she is doing!
- Where are you currently located?
Amy: Somerville, MA
- Where are you currently working and a brief description of your job?
Amy: I am the CEO/Founder of Move to Live®More with a mission to help people live healthier, longer, more active lives. A research and consulting firm addressing physical inactivity, chronic disease, and social determinants of health, Move to Live More provides services to clients in three sectors—healthcare, health & fitness, and communities.
- The 4 pillars of the DrPH Program are leadership, management, communication, and innovative thinking. Which of the pillars (if any) do you use most in your new position and how did the program prepare you for it?
Amy: I use all four pillars all the time. Leadership: establishing thought leadership is a critical piece of starting a new business. Management: I manage up, down, and sideways working with clients, sub-contractors, co-authors, co-presenters, and business partners. Communication: trusted messengers sharing relevant and actionable information is a recurring theme in my client work. Innovative thinking: I launched Move to Live More as part of my doctoral project, and I was very intentional in focusing my company’s mission and vision on knocking down silos and finding solutions to problems through cross-sector collaboration and innovation.
- If you are in a management position, what would you look for if you were hiring new graduates from the DrPH Program?
Amy: I would look for skills in systems-level and innovative thinking and the ability to translate research into policy. I have found these to be the skills that my clients value the most. One of the most gratifying moments in my post-DrPH work was a client that said “only a public health practitioner with your skillset could have researched and then operationalized this system for us.” The value of the DrPH is real, and I am proud to be a part of DrPH Coalition efforts to raise the visibility of our degree.
- If you could do things all over again, would you choose the same path for yourself? Why? What would you change?
Amy: I am grateful every day for how the DrPH Program prepared me to be a public health leader during a public health crisis, and I would not change a thing.
- Is there any work/document/article that you are currently working on that you’d like to promote? Our current students would love to find out what our alumni are currently working on.
Amy: Yes, I am very excited about my current work! I co-authored (with my doctoral project methods advisor) a course to help fitness professionals meet the needs of their clients with obesity while creating an inclusive environment that encourages lifelong healthy behavior and engagement. I just completed two projects on the intersection of physical activity and mental health and well-being, one for adults and one for elementary school children. This week I have an article in the Harvard Medical School Primary Care Review about how healthcare providers are trusted messengers with an important role to play in counseling their patients on the health benefits of physical activity (and I was even able to cite my doctoral project).
If you would like to connect with Amy, please visit her LinkedIn profile here.
