The field of public health is uniquely positioned to bring about the necessary change for historically excluded populations through high-impact interventions focused on advancing health equity.
the opportunity to collaborate with passionate and brilliant colleagues within my organization and externally to create a more equitable and just food system.
Something that would surprise others about me:
Even though I have worked heavily in the community for most of my career in externally facing roles, I am an introvert who prefers to strategize and create behind the scenes.
Ashley Hickson is a champion for health equity, social justice, and evidence-informed interventions. As an African American woman who has lived in the South for her entire life, Ashley intimately understands how structural inequities widen health disparities either through action or inaction from stakeholders with decision-making power. In her role as a Senior Health Equity Advisor and Policy Scientist at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), she works closely with CSPI’s program team to evaluate existing programmatic work and build out new programmatic work through a health equity lens. She also leads the healthy retail project, which involves implementing state and local policies across the nation to improve the retail environment for consumers.Â
Ashley is a Bloomberg American Health Initiative Fellow and holds an MPH from the University of Texas Health Science Center and dual degrees (BBA/BS) from the University of Texas at Austin. She is currently a Doctorate of Public Health candidate in the Health Equity and Social Justice concentration at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.Â
