Welcome to the Lerner Center for Public Health Advocacy
Training leaders as effective advocates for solving the world's greatest public health challenges.
What is Advocacy?
We define advocacy as strategic actions taken to drive social, organizational, or policy change on behalf of particular health goals or population health. This encompasses a range of disciplines and practices that effectively engage and inform policymakers, media, and the public to act and embrace evidence-based solutions for public health challenges.
Policy is one of the most powerful tools for ensuring that everyone can have the fairest, most equitable opportunity for a healthy, prosperous life and environment. We will enhance the knowledge and skills of public health professionals to effectively translate the science, engage with decisionmakers, build political support and will, and use data to effectively drive change.
Public health advocacy has the power to improve all lives through evidence-based action.
What's New
New policy engagement training for public health professionals
Advocacy 101 is a foundational skill-building course designed to introduce public health and health professionals to the fundamentals of policy advocacy.
Winners: Sommer Klag Advocacy Impact Awards Lightning Pitch Competition
Congratulations to the award winners, Harry Barbee, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society, and Mariana Socal, MD, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management.
2025 Sommer Klag Advocacy Achievement Award Winner: Dr. Apryl Alexander
Apryl Alexander, PsyD, has been named the winner of the 2025 Sommer Klag Advocacy Achievement Award. Dr. Alexander earned the $30,000 award for her advocacy work on behalf of at-promise and systems-involved youth.
The Power of Advocacy
If we want demonstrable improvements in the public’s health, we need to intervene in the larger political and social arena and more fully engage in advocacy to inform decision making in our society.
— Ellen J. MacKenzie PhD ’79, MSc ’75, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, Dean Emeritus, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
