Celebrating Leslie Mikkelsen’s contributions to community health

Please join us in wishing Leslie well and appreciating her accomplishments as she moves on to her next professional opportunity
It’s never easy to say goodbye to a beloved colleague, especially during a global pandemic. But we’ve known for a while now that PI managing director Leslie Mikkelsen planned to move on from our organization, and it’s time for us to share that news with the broader PI community. We’ll miss working side-by-side with Leslie and want to make sure you know about the significant contributions she’s made to improving community health during her 20+ year tenure at PI.
 
As a public health nutritionist, Leslie came to PI more than 20 years ago ready to lead our cutting-edge work to promote healthy eating and active living as key contributors to health. In collaboration with partners in government, philanthropy, and the nonprofit sector, she led PI’s work that fundamentally changed the policy approach to diet and activity, which at the time focused almost exclusively on blaming people who suffered from diet- and activity-related chronic illnesses for their own predicament.
 
Leslie and her colleagues at PI and other organizations advocated for a different approach—one that addresses environmental influences like whether healthy food, safe parks, and playgrounds are available in all communities; holds corporations accountable for harmful practices like marketing unhealthy foods and sugary beverages to children; and calls on the government to implement policies such as taking junk food out of schools and providing resources for safe routes to school and physical education. We’re proud to say that this approach has been adopted by government agencies and organizations throughout the country.
Examples of Leslie’s and PI’s cutting-edge work to support heathier eating and active living:

Leslie has also been a leader in encouraging healthcare organizations to take their work beyond the exam room and into communities. Since 2011, she has advocated for healthcare organizations to address the community factors that can diminish the health, safety, and wellbeing of their patients, such as food insecurity, unsafe or unaffordable housing, and environmental contamination. Leslie coined the term Community-Centered Health Homes (CCHH) to refer to healthcare organizations that work to improve the community determinants of health in partnership with community organizations. The CCHH model provides healthcare organizations with a structure for engaging in this work. Through more than 12 million dollars in funder investments, the model has been piloted in the Gulf Coast states, North Carolina, and numerous communities in Texas. The Community Centered Health Homes model demonstrates how healthcare organizations can be valued partners in community-level prevention efforts to advance health equity and population health.
 
Examples of Leslie’s and PI’s work to promote health systems transformation:

Leslie’s contributions will have a lasting impact on the way we approach health throughout the United States, and, as we say goodbye, we look forward to seeing what she develops in her next professional venture, which she will know more about after a much-deserved break.
 
To stay in touch with Leslie, you can email her at lesliemikkelsen [at] outlook.com (lesliemikkelsen[at]outlook[dot]com) or reach out to her through LinkedIn.

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