About Us

Alex brings over 30 years’ experience in community empowerment and has demonstrated a passion for building the capacity of individuals and organizations to improve health outcomes. He holds a master’s degree in clinical psychology and has a track record of designing and implementing successful community-based programs targeting individual, family, and community change through health education and outreach programs, using the community health worker model. Through this model, a powerful transference of positive community change results: families become healthier and more stable; neighborhoods become revitalized by increased collaboration, health, and opportunity; and communities are healed and renewed through positive action, a solidified identity, and an increased sense of hope.

“HECC is a result of local and national learning experiences from the COVID crisis, demonstrating first with our efforts around vaccines that when we work and organize together, we can drive positive change. I’m most excited to expand HECC to tackle other health equity challenge all communities are facing, and be the catalyst that helps communities to fulfill their potential.”

Alexandra has spent two decades in the federal government and non-profit sectors, focused on equity, justice, education and health. She has held several executive positions at Health Leads and had the opportunity to work closely with health care systems, local public health and community partners from across the country. She previously served as the vice president of program at Peer Forward, a national nonprofit focused on equitable access to education and career pathways, and started her career in the federal government working for the Attorney General at the Department of Justice. She was named a W.K. Kellogg Community Leadership Network Fellow focused on racial equity, racial healing, and leadership and was named to the “Care100 list” as one of the most influential people in care in 2020.

“HECC was sparked by the belief that no single person or organization or even government can alone tackle the deep health inequities in this country. At the same time, there is nothing more powerful than the collective action, work, and expertise that exist in every community. Building on the learning, failures, wins and tent we started to build during COVID-19 through VEC and the Community Based Workforce Alliance, I am excited to co-create this next phase of HECC with our partners, our community and everyone yet to join us.”

As a woman of Cape Verdean descent, a community health worker, certified patient navigator and survivor of a rare chronic disease, Denise is a creative, committed and collaborative policy and advocacy strategist and equity champion who collaborates with global corporations, agencies of the U.S. federal and statewide government, and community-based organizations to advance CHW unity, leadership, capacity and sustainability. She envisions a culture of health where individuals have self-determination and dignity, where communities meaningfully contribute to system design and governance and where societies eliminate structural barriers to well-being. 

“HECC organizes leaders from across geography, race, ethnicity, language, sector and lived experience to realize a collective vision for equity, belonging, power and health. During the early months of the global COVID-19 pandemic, a group of leaders were called together to build trust and transparency, invest resources to build an infrastructure to strengthen and scale the innovations of communities of color, and expand access to funding, partnerships, prevention and care. Not for a moment. For a movement to eradicate health inequities.”

Durryle is an interdisciplinary scholar-practitioner and a social justice educator from Baltimore, MD. He is the founder and CEO of Love and Justice Consulting LLC, an organizational and leadership development firm that provides leaders with diversity and social justice learning opportunities to increase their capacity to effectively and authentically engage difference. As a social justice practitioner, Durryle’ work focuses on re-centering love in our collective racial justice efforts and harnessing its transformative capacity to reshape our lives in ways that honor the very core of who and what we are. He is the author of (Re)conceptualizing Love: Moving Towards a Critical Theory of Love in Education for Social Justice, which articulates a vision and framework for re-conceptualizing love in ways that produces intersectional justice and healing for people of color, communities, and our society as a whole.

“It is difficult to be well, when we find ourselves in places and contexts where we are told that we do not matter or made to feel that we do not belong. For me, the HECC is a space to tackle head on the many intricate ways our capacity for well-being is inextricably tied to history and systemic forces. But what most excites me is that we dream bigger than just the elimination of systemic oppressions that make it sick. We are actively working to design a world where we all belong and through that we can be really made well in mind, body, and soul.”

Jacquelyn is a long-time advocate for public health, health equity, and social justice. She is passionately dedicated to ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to live a long, quality life regardless of their identity, place of residence, or income level. As the Director of the Health Equity Community Collaborative (HECC), Jacquelyn works to support the HECC Core Partners in developing and guiding strategic initiatives, leading the implementation of these initiatives through working groups and network partners.

“During the COVID-19 response, all sectors focused on the shared goal of eradicating fatalities due to the virus. My hope for the future is that leaders and organizations still see the need to partner to reverse the impact of racism and persistent health inequities. Together, I believe we can pave a path to lasting racial health equity for future generations, ensuring that everyone, regardless of their background, has access to fair treatment, resources, and opportunities for a healthy life."

Latia has spent over two decades advising companies and industry leaders on strategic communications, and serves as the health equity lead at RALLY, an advocacy agency focused on driving progress around complex political, cultural, and social challenges. She helped lead the creation and launch of HECC with its initial focus on vaccine equity, and remains committed to shaping the Collaborative’s strategy and approach to working collectively against the most pressing health equity challenges of today. 

“HECC is a big tent, the only one of its kind that offers a home for anyone working locally or nationally on health justice can find community, connection, belonging, resources, and concrete ways to advocate and take action on the issues that matter most.” 

Rhea works clinically, writes and teaches on the adverse health impacts of structural inequity. She partners with community-based organizations to address structural inequity and mitigate the associated harms. She is a member of the core partners who help to shape the strategic vision for HECC.

“Racial health equity is foundational to public health. It is also an essential output of high quality health care delivery. Racial health equity begins at the community-level, in partnership with impacted communities and families. And it grows through collective efforts towards justice, democracy, healing and well-being. Elevating and advancing the many facets of this work is core to HECC’s mission and vision and I am proud to be a part of that work and to build a just and joyful future alongside this community.”

Rishi has designed and advanced bold strategies to help health care move upstream and advance health equity for historically marginalized patients and communities throughout his career as physician, executive, and public health champion. He is a co-founder of the national Community-Based Workforce Alliance (CBWA) and a core partner in the design process for HECC, which will be the new backbone for the CBWA and other collaborative health equity efforts.

“One thing I’ve learned is that the internal transformation we undergo and the relationships we form in the pursuit of health equity are as important as the external transformation we seek in our institutions and social policies. This effort - the HECC - will accelerate equitable distribution of resources and provide material support to community-driven health equity efforts. But it will also fuel deliberate solidarity, helping us connect directly with each other as we remember Dr. King’s words: ‘We can all get more together than we can apart. And this is the way we gain power. Power is the ability to achieve purpose, power is the ability to effect change, and we need power.’”

Scott has three decades of pioneering accomplishments in the U.S. and globally in health communication, health literacy, and strategic diplomacy. He has co-authored the definition of health literacy adopted by HHS and integrated in the U.S. Affordable Care Act, as well as several books including Tom Bradley: The Impossible Dream,  Vaccine Communication in a Pandemic: Strengthening Vaccine Literacy, Restoring Trust and Engaging Communities to Foster Vaccine Confidence and Uptake, and AIDS: Effective Health Communication for the 90s.

“The ideals and values for health equity are foundational from the community to national level. While chronicling the biography of Tom Bradley in his quest as the first black mayor in Los Angeles and thwarted attempt to be elected the first black governor in 1982, it was evident that seemingly insurmountable hurdles could be addressed with patience, perseverance and partnerships. Today, we face challenges with racial health equity that HECC and our networks can address with innovative engagement with communities at the center.”