Flor Giusti has worked for more than 20 years with members of the Latino community in Baltimore. In her current clinical role at Johns Hopkins Bayview, Ms. Giusti works with women and their families to assist them in attaining their potential and she helps clients achieve their goals in a safe environment, which includes access to health and education. Ms. Giusti offers educational workshops on domestic violence as well as diversity training on Latino immigrant issues. Ms. Giusti has worked in clinical mental health settings including working with dually diagnosed patients (mental health and substance abuse); providing counseling to Latina women affected by Intimate Partner Violence; and providing support to at-risk young mothers, women, and their families. Ms. Giusti has a Masters in Social Work from the University of Maryland at Baltimore and she completed a degree in Clinical Psychology at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, her country of origin. Ms. Giusti is a fellow in Clinical Scholars, a national leadership program supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that invests in innovative health care providers who are advancing health equity in their communities.

Dave Lehr is Meritus Health’s first chief strategy officer. Before joining Meritus, he served as the chief information officer (CIO) for Luminis Health, based in Annapolis. In his time at Luminis, Mr. Lehr was selected as one of the top 25 emerging leaders in health care in 2019 by Modern Healthcare. Mr. Lehr also serves as a co-chair on the national opioid taskforce for the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives which brings CIOs together across the country to fight the opioid epidemic. Earlier in his career, Mr. Lehr founded a consulting practice and a cloud-based clinical decision support company, Maven Medical. Mr. Lehr also worked previously at Epic, the electronic medical records company.

Sadiya Muqueeth, DrPH, is the Director of Community Health at the Trust for Public Land. In this capacity, Dr. Muqueeth works to promote the use of parks and public greenspaces, to promote healthy, livable communities for generations to come. Dr. Muqueeth has established the Trust’s national health strategy and use of innovative partnerships to increase policy support for quality greenspaces. Dr. Muqueeth contributes a wealth of international, national, and local experiences to the CHRC, including strategy consulting, policy, evaluation, research, philanthropy, and programming. She has worked on tuberculosis initiatives in South Africa and India; strengthened health systems in Thailand and Colombia; supported evaluation and public health surveillance across the United States; and led a maternal and child health collaborative in Maryland. Dr. Muqueeth served previously as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Paraguay and is the Co-Founder and CEO of a consulting firm, Hyphen Health, LLC. Dr. Muqueeth earned her Bachelors of Arts in Public Health Studies from Johns Hopkins University; her Masters of Public Health in Health Behavior from University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill; and her Doctorate in Public Health from Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, with a concentration in Humanitarian Studies, Ethics, and Human Rights.

The Maryland Health Equity Resource Act, approved during the 2021 legislative session, provides significant new grant funding and state resources for local communities to address health disparities, improve health outcomes, expand access to primary care and prevention services, and help reduce health care costs. The CHRC will implement this Act with the assistance of the Health Equity Resource Community (HERC) Advisory Committee, the Maryland Department of Health’s Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities, and Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients (CRISP). On July 12, the CHRC announced appointments to the HERC Advisory Committee. A list of Advisory Committee members can be found here. The HERC Advisory Committee will provide technical assistance in implementing and evaluating the HERC program.

The CHRC and HERC Advisory Committee will hold its first meeting on August 11, at 1:00 p.m. at 100 Community Place in Crownsville. This meeting will be open to the public. Social distancing will be practiced and individuals are requested to follow the face covering recommendation issued by the Maryland Department of Health on July 1, 2021. The guidelines are available here.  

Interested individuals may also participate remotely using the following Google Meets link: meet.google.com/vux-grvw-fwu

If you would like to be added to an email distribution list about the HERC Initiative, please ​​​​contact Mark Luckner, CHRC Executive Director at mark.luckner@maryland.gov.

For more information, please visit the CHRC’s HERC webpage.

CHRC staff were invited to give a presentation about funding for School-Based Health Centers at a meeting of the CDC Crisis Response Cooperative Agreement: COVID-19 Public Health Workforce Supplemental Funding. Click here to view the presentation.

The Maryland Department of Health (MDH) has launched “Know Your Risk,” a new statewide campaign encouraging Marylanders to “take one minute” to complete an online quiz designed to assess their risk for prediabetes. Marylanders are encouraged to discuss the results with their doctor and make lifestyle changes if necessary. The campaign supports prevention goals outlined in Maryland’s Diabetes Action Plan, the state’s multi-faceted strategy to address diabetes over the next decade.

For more information about prediabetes, how to prevent type 2 diabetes and to take the “Know Your Risk” quiz, visit health.maryland.gov/prediabetes.

The Maryland Department of Health (MDH) continues to provide daily updates as they become available. Visit the MDH websites for the most current information about COVID-19 and Maryland's ongoing response to the pandemic.

To access the MDH coronavirus disease web page, click COVID-19 Maryland. For the latest MDH face covering recommendations issued July 1, 2021, click here.