May 2016…Healthy NewsWorks has received a public health award from the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, one of the nation’s oldest professional medical associations.
During an event on May 10, the college‘s Section on Public Health and Preventive Medicine Steering Committee gave Healthy NewsWorks its 2016 Organizational Public Health Recognition Award. The award is given each year to recognize an organization that has made substantial contributions to the health of the community through work in any aspect of public health.
Healthy NewsWorks was chosen “for its work to promote health and literacy by engaging elementary and middle school students to address intellectually and creatively the health issues that confront their generation,” according to the award plaque.
Dr. James Plumb, a professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University, presented the award. “The program is about the health of future generations,” he said in an interview after the ceremony. The judges were impressed by “the messages the students are sharing and the mentoring they get,” he said. “I think the students are inspired by the people they interview.”
Receiving the award for Healthy NewsWorks was Gabriela Fiorentino Wong, a student reporter from the Highland Park Healthy Hawk, one of the health-focused school newspapers produced in 14 schools in Philadelphia, Norristown, and Upper Darby.
“We are deeply honored to receive this award, which reinforces our belief that students can be ambassadors for positive health messages among their peers and in the wider community,” said Marian Uhlman, director of Healthy NewsWorks. “We are grateful to the College of Physicians and the Section on Public Health and Preventive Medicine for the recognition and the encouragement to continue developing our program to advance health education in more schools and communities.”
The Section on Public Health presented two other awards during the event:
- The Individual Award went to Amy Jessop, Ph.D., M.P.H., an associate professor of health policy and public health at the University of the Sciences.
- The Student Award went to Karie Youngdahl, director of the History of  Vaccines website at the College of Physicians and an M.P.H. candidate at the College of Population Health at Thomas Jefferson University.
The event also featured student health poster presentations by approximately 100 public health students from Philadelphia-area universities, and five of the poster presentations received awards.
