Town Hall Meeting Speakers

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Speakers' Biographies

Hatice S. Zahran, MD, MPH

Epidemiologist, Division of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects,

National Center for Environmental Health, CDC

Hatice S. Zahran, MD, MPH, currently works with the Asthma Surveillance and Epidemiology Team in the Air Pollution Respiratory Health Branch, Division of Environmental Hazards and Health Effects, National Center for Environmental Health, CDC. Her responsibilities include systematic management, collection, analysis, and interpretation of asthma surveillance data.

Dr. Zahran received her MD degree from the University of Ankara, Turkey in 1978. Upon receiving her MPH degree from the State University of New York at Albany in 2002, she joined CDC as an epidemiologist.Prior to joining the Asthma Surveillance and Epidemiology Team, her research interests had centered on conducting exposure investigation and research activities on environmental pollutants at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and research activities on the health-related quality of life and the effects of chronic diseases on quality of life at the Division of Adult and Community Health, CDC. She has extensive work experience applying the appropriate basic and advanced statistical and analytic methods for each project that she has worked on.

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Peggy Gaddy, RRT, MBA

Missouri Asthma Prevention Coordinator

Missouri Asthma Prevention and Control Program (MAPCP)

Peggy Gaddy, RRT, MBA, coordinates the Missouri Asthma Prevention and Control Program (MAPCP), a community health service unit within the Bureau of Chronic Disease at the State of Missouri Department of Health & Senior Services. She has been connected to MAPCP since its first collaborative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2001.

Her career began as a respiratory therapist in her native state of Mississippi. After managing a variety of inpatient and outpatient services during 15 years in hospital administration, she entered public health in 1998 to focus her leadership and planning efforts on chronic disease prevention and management. Working with statewide partners, Gaddy developed and implemented the state’s Putting Excellent Asthma Care Within Reach plan bycoordinating statewide resources to focus on school nursing services, medical care quality, health disparities, self-management education, and indoor air quality. MAPCP was honored for its innovation in 2008 by the Governor’s Award for Quality and Productivity.

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Charlotte W. Collins, JD

Vice President of Policy and Programs

Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America

Charlotte W. Collins, JD, is Vice President of Policy and Programs for the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA). Before joining AAFA, she was an Associate Professor in the George Washington University’s School of Public Health and Health Services, teaching graduate courses in public health, law, policy and management. Collins received her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, and was former counsel in the health care policy practice in the Washington, D.C. office of a national law firm. For more than a decade, she worked with advocates to expand health coverage for the uninsured in the State of Tennessee, acted as general counsel, and ran government relations for a safety net hospital system in Memphis

Currently, she is principal investigator for AAFA's asthma education programs, authors AAFA's annual State Honor Roll of Asthma and Allergy Policies for Schools, and represents AAFA on the Coordinating Committee of the National Asthma Education and Prevention Program. In 1995, she won the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. In April 2006, Modern Healthcare magazine named her as one of the nation’s Top 25 Minority Healthcare Executives.

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