Digital Health Equity | Innovation | Public Health Innovators, LLC

ABOUT

Promoting Digital Health Equity

In 2017, Amy established Public Health Innovators, LLC to help health innovators ensure that innovations make an impact by incorporating public health perspectives. PHI also helps public health organizations to incorporate innovation into their data collection and service delivery. Public Health Innovators uses mapping and storytelling to help institutions undertake a strategic approach to digital health equity.

Amy R. Sheon, Ph.D., MPH

Amy Sheon is a nationally recognized thought leader around digital health equity and inclusion. Since 2017, she has led Public Health Innovators, LLC where she consults with health systems, governments, non-profit, philanthropic and medical professional organizations, and the tech industry to develop strategies to ensure meaningful and impactful adoption of digital health technologies. With the COVID-19 pandemic creating urgent needs and compelling opportunities to address digital health equity, Amy decided to devote her full time attention to consulting through Public Health Innovators beginning in 2021.

From 2011-2021, Amy served as the founding Executive Director for the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine’s Urban Health Initiative. She developed Cleveland & Cuyahoga Health Data Matters, a community health open data and data visualization platform. She also co-led the development of Neighborhood Immersion for Compassion and Empathy Virtual Reality Health Equity Training tool and led the public health track of the Cleveland Medical Hackathon. As a 2020 Senior Fellow at the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, she began working on the digital health navigator model. Sheon also serves as a founding Executive Advisory Board member of NODE.Health, the Network of Digital Evidence in Health, where she brings attention to the need to consider digital equity in the development, testing and deployment of digital health tools.

For more than two decades, she has conducted clinical and prevention studies with a particular focus on health equity. After completing Demographic and Health surveys around the globe, she joined the National Institutes of Health, overseeing epidemiologic and prevention studies related to HIV infection. Her work preparing vulnerable communities for HIV vaccine efficacy trials offers many lessons for contemporary challenges related to COVID vaccine distribution. Subsequently, at the University of Michigan (UM), she developed large new programs in clinical research, ethical issues in genetics, and early childhood development. More recently, she led an effort to develop a statewide system of body mass index surveillance for the State of Michigan for the non-profit Altarum Institute.

Amy earned her BA in sociology (Cornell University), a Master’s in Public Health (University of Michigan), and a Ph.D. in public health policy (Johns Hopkins University).

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"The training videos were absolutely amazing!"

"Since 2016, Amy has inspired and trained Community Health Workers to be digital justice warriors who advocate for and help vulnerable populations to use the internet to improve their health and their lives. With the COVID-19 pandemic making digital skills essential, the model that she developed with our TRI-C students could be adopted to ensure that vulnerable populations can keep themselves and their families safe during the COVID-19 pandemic. Amy is a committed community partner and social justice champion."

"Our digital navigator is now ready to begin the pilot. The training videos were absolutely amazing! Each video was packed with so much valuable information. I can’t thank you enough!"

Digital Health Coordinator, Cleveland, Ohio hospital

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"The educational material was eye opening."

"Thank you for the training presentation. I greatly appreciated your help and the insight from Ashbury Senior Computer Community Center. This added a level of organization to my role as Digital Health Navigator, which will hopefully lead to a more effective engagement with the senior citizens.

Moreover, the educational material from last week was eye opening. Specifically, the connectivity disparities directly caused by decades of discrimination is infuriating. I attended a health equity talk on MLK day by Dr. Agnes Binagwaho. After speaking with her, she indicated to me that one of the best ways to battle health disparities is by giving agency to the community. In the era of Covid-19, virtual access is fundamental for all forms of equity. It is an honor to be working to mitigate the effects of digital health disparities in Cleveland."

"Thank you for the training presentation. I greatly appreciated your help. This added a level of organization to my role as Digital Health Navigator, which will hopefully lead to a more effective engagement with the senior citizens. Moreover, the educational material from last week was eye opening. Specifically, the connectivity disparities directly caused by decades of discrimination is infuriating. It is an honor to be working to mitigate the effects of digital health disparities in Cleveland."

Daksh Bhargava, Research Assistant, Dept. of Family Medicine and Community Health, University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve University, School of Medicine

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"Amy is a wonderful thought partner..."

"As an early adopter in the use of data visualization and storytelling, Amy brings passion, perseverance and innovative thinking regarding the social determinants of health to help motivate community-level change. Her clarity and focus on problems with digital access from long prior to the pandemic has helped me and countless others to understand the digital divide as a matter of health equity. Amy is a wonderful thought partner so it’s exciting to see her expanding her work from Northeast Ohio to the whole nation. "

Andy Krackov, National thought leader on data visualization and storytelling, President, Hillcrest Advisory Formerly, Associate Director, External Engagement, California Health Care Foundation

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"Dr. Sheon is my go-to source..."

"Dr. Sheon is my go-to source for cutting edge public health innovation and insight. Her work evidences a clear understanding of how to shape health policy by blending community preferences with scientific perspectives on community health improvement."

Adam Perzynski, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Medicine and Sociology MetroHealth and CWRU

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"Amy truly cares about making the world a better place."

"Over the years, I have worked with Amy Sheon on numerous innovative initiatives such as the Cleveland Medical Hackathon, Infant Mortality, Social Determinants of Health and more and each time the results are outstanding and impactful. Truly the community benefits when Amy is engaged. Recently, Amy provided in-depth research and analysis for The Wisdom Collaborative in Lake County identifying areas of focus required to address Digital Inclusion. Amy truly cares about making the world a better place."

John Paganini, MBA, CPHIMS, President, Paguar Informatics, Inc., Program Chair of the The Wisdom Collaborative

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"I am using some of your research to convince the President..."

"Yesterday I was part of a meeting to brainstorm with Ursuline College's president about goals for the next three years. I brought up broadband in particular and internet access since at least 10-15% of our students still lack the resources for effective distant learning. I thought you might like to know that I am using some of your research to attempt to convince the President and the Board of Trustees to add more resources to solving the problem. Most of our students come from Northeast Ohio, so these articles are directly relevant."

Pamela McVay, Ph.D., Professor of History, Ursuline College