Alisa Howard
Alisa Howard (pronounced Ah-lee-suh), “The Accidental Public Health Advocate,” is tackling public health issues with a multifaceted approach. As owner and founder of Minority Health Consultants, she helps stakeholders bridge health gaps in underserved communities to help these communities overcome barriers they may face, called social determinants of health. She’s also a speaker, author, editor, former radio show host, and deeply active community member.
After getting a degree in Paralegal Studies and working as a paralegal for three years, Howard found that she wasn’t fond of working in law.
“I love the law, but I didn’t love the type of people attracted to the legal profession; they were more interested in how much a case was worth,” she explained. “I’m more focused on people and community and their overall well-being, so it was a clash of ideals.”
Howard then returned to school for a Bachelor of Psychology, adding to her three associate’s degrees, which included her paralegal degree. She later found herself in a field she never expected to work in, which put her on the path to where she is now, managing her own public health organization.
“My work now is a summation of everything I love,” she said. “I’m a big-picture type of person, and I love learning what people need and finding a solution in the middle of that. Helping people is my purpose. I learned that your path is not always straight; you don’t know where you may end up.”
How Alisa Howard Accidentally Become a Public Health Advocate
Howard shared how a friend working in public health told a mutual friend of theirs that her office was hiring for a part-time Administrative Assistant. She told this friend she was interested because she was in college full-time and had a daughter to support, so extra money would not hurt.
“When I got the interview and the state manager for this department saw that I had a background in writing and editing, she offered me a Policy and Procedure Writer position for the Tuberculosis Elimination Program for the Office of Public Health Informatics and Epidemiology (OPHIE). So that’s how I got my start in public health, accidentally. I never thought I’d find myself in this field, but I ended up working there for two years,” she said.
At OPHIE, she met people working on many public health topics, such as HIV, Hospital Infection Control, and Cancer.
“In the office, we would discuss the public health field in general, how public health issues impacted marginalized groups, causing disparities, and that is when it clicked to me on how I could help people; I’d work on these disparities, the social determinants of health to ultimately bring health equity to these communities,” she explained.
From there, she worked at the Southern Nevada Health District for two years in the HIV/STI Department. Then, she got hand-selected by her state manager and the HIV manager to start and run the first Ryan White HIV Early Intervention & Prevention minority-focused program at the Las Vegas Urban League, a community organization focused on civil rights and justice.
“Everything comes full circle,” says Howard. When that program ended due to national funding for HIV being cut, Howard went on to form her public health organization–Minority Health Consultants (MHC), because “she knew the work still had to be done.”
Minority Health Consultants
The Organization and Its Focus
After launching in 2018, Howard has managed her organization for the past four years, making up almost half of the 10 years she’s worked in public health.
By providing services such as HIV events, Health Education classes, Community Health Worker training, and health program development, MHC offers stakeholders an opportunity to learn from her how to authentically build relationships with minority and BIPOC communities to more effectively reach them to improve health outcomes.
“Companies and organizations hire me also to help with strategic planning because I can see the big picture,” Howard explained. “I teach these companies how to not just look at these communities as having health problems to be solved, but to see them as people first and have a patient-centered approach while working with them.”
Howard also mentioned how Minority Health Consultants is involved legislatively here in Nevada in passing policies and bills that will help minority and BIPOC communities.
Radio Show to Bring Equity in a Pandemic
In 2021, Alisa Howard was contracted as a public health radio show host by marketing companies, Sumnu Marketing and Brain Trust for a six-month show titled, ‘Just the Facts,’ the show was sponsored by the Southern Nevada Health District and played monthly on the local station, KCEP 88.1 FM.
“The show was part of a bigger campaign called ‘Arm in Arm,’ and the purpose was to bring only facts about COVID and other public health topics to the African-American community due to all of the misinformation that was circulating,” says Howard.
While the show is no longer airing, SNHD’s Arm in Arm campaign is still actively distributing information, flyers, and other educational material to the community. In addition, recordings are available on SNHD’s website.
A Focus on Underserved Communities
According to the MHC About Us page, MHC “is a boutique public health firm focusing on stakeholders who improve the health of minority communities. MHC bridges gaps between stakeholders and the communities they serve through education, prevention, advocacy, and policy. MHC believes that addressing inequity in these areas and focusing on social determinants through the public health lens will end stigma, disparities, and other barriers to health for communities of color, low-income populations, and other marginalized groups.”
Howard shared that she decided to focus on underserved communities because state resources usually don’t make it to them/us.
“I wanted to focus on those who get systematically overlooked. And being a minority myself makes it very important to me,” she said. “It all comes back to helping people; how can we give back to this world and become humans to each other again.”
To put action to what she believes, Howard also shared that she started a scholarship in October 2022 for minority and BIPOC public health students at UNLV.
“I don’t want just to be a business owner; I want to be a business owner that gives back in different ways,” she said. “So I partnered with the School of Public Health to help bring students who look like me and the community into this line of work to have better public health outcomes.
“I love the motto, “Each one, teach one,” Howard said. “If I learn something, I want to teach the next person in line behind me to do the work I do. And, when I retire, I want to ensure the city is well cared for.”
People can donate directly to the scholarship here.
Connecting Faith and Health
Howard also talked about how an idea came to her during the pandemic to implement Community Health Workers (CHWs), a subject she had taught at the College of Southern Nevada for three years and now teaches training with the Nevada CHW Association for the past two years.
She worked with the Nevada Faith and Health Coalition on the idea.
“Twelve students were chosen to address health disparities, each representing a different church or faith-based organization (FBO) in different priority health zip codes. The Trudy Larson Institute at the University of Nevada Reno and the Office of Minority Health funded this idea., Now, it’s a two-year pilot program where volunteers of these FBOs have been trained as CHWs and are paid $20 per hour,” she said. “As a spiritual person who grew up in church and loves God, I am so honored to utilize my public health expertise to implement the first faith-based CHW project in Nevada; this is public health in action.”
Howard offers Community Health Worker training online and in-person through MHC’s contract with the Nevada CHW Association. They are based on an organization’s request.
MHC Upcoming event
As part of MHC’s work, the organization also partners and collaborates with other organizations to create events related to public health.
On February 7th at the Culinary Academy, MHC is collaborating with Silver State Equality and Black Queer Men of Las Vegas to present an annual HIV event. This year’s theme is ‘Validating The Black Experience,’ an education prevention and awareness event to celebrate National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.
“The event is from 5 to 7:30 p.m., where we will provide a free dinner and a show,” Howard said. You can RSVP for the event here.
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Alisa Howard: The Experience Through It All
Howard shared that throughout her experiences, the understanding that we are more alike than we are different is what stands out to her the most. And with that reasoning, she raises the question again, “how do we ensure everyone has everything they need to function and live properly?”
“At the end of the day, we all have human needs,” she said. “And that ties into Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which I find many people don’t know about or understand. For example, a person can’t find the motivation to take care of themselves if basic needs like shelter, safety, food, and even environmental factors like clean air or water aren’t met. And what we find is that people not having their basic needs met is not an individual problem; it’s a societal one.”
Howard’s Other Endeavors
AHP Writing and Editing
Founded in 2011, Alisa Howard’s first step into the entrepreneurial world was when she started AHP Writing and Editing as an extension of her natural love and gift for writing.
“I wanted to help other people who wanted help with editing or writing,” she shared. “This is where my writing background comes from, which ultimately led me to get the policy job with the state.”
Today the business is now a book development and book consulting company for Writers.
“I don’t do as much editing anymore because my health business takes up a lot of my time,” she shared, “but I eventually want to offer writing classes for youth and adults in the future.”
Learn more about AHP Writing and Editing by visiting the website.
Whispers of Words Spoken
To add to her writing prowess, Alisa Howard is also a published author. She released a book of her poems titled, ‘Whispers of Words Spoken,’ written under her pseudonym, An Howard, in 2012.
“Since I was young, I always wanted to be an author and have that title,” she shared. “This is my first published book. I took all the poetry I had written up to that point and put it in a book.”
To order her book, visit her website or email her directly at anhowardpub@gmail.com. It is available to purchase for $10 plus a $5 flat rate shipping fee to anywhere in the United States.
Currently, Howard’s goal is to write one book a year now.
“I’m actually working on two right now,” she said. “One is something new for me. It will be a creative social justice project.” The second is another poetry book I plan to publish later this year.”
Howard likes writing fiction, romance, and drama but realized she needed to use her writing for the public health work she does, too.
Howard was in a writing group with some colleagues and friends, including André C. Wade, author of ‘Seven Ways to Disappear,’ and Kimberly Mitchell, author of, ‘Don’t Forget You’re Still Alive,’
“We started the group at the beginning of the pandemic on Zoom, keeping each other motivated, bouncing ideas off each other, and helping each other reach our goals,” she shared. “We still have this group and are looking to expand it to other writers this year.”
#GetinMotion With Alisa Howard
There are many ways to follow Alisa Howard and get involved in her work for the community. She is always in need of interns and volunteers.
Follower her on Instagram and Twitter, and check out her website or LinkTree to learn more about her work.
To learn more about Minority Health Consultants, visit the website to check out classes and workshops, and follow MHC on Facebook.
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