Community

Annual Satcher Awards Honor Faculty for Work in Health Equity

May. 9, 2025
The 16th annual Dr. David Satcher Community Health Improvement Awards and Special Public Health Grand Rounds celebrated health advocacy and innovative community health partnerships.
 
Hosted by the Center for Community Health & Prevention (CCHP), the awards reflect the shared mission of the CCHP and University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) to develop and expand University-community partnerships that support participatory research and interventions to reduce inequities and improve health in our region.
 
The event, held in the URMC Class of ’62 Auditorium, kicked off with a keynote presentation and Special Public Health Grand Rounds by Jannette Berkley-Patton, PhD, professor in the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) School of Medicine Biomedical and Health Informatics Department and director of the UMKC Health Equity institute. In her keynote, “Engaging Community and Health Partners in Designing and Delivering Large-Scale Health Interventions for Increased Reach, Influence, and Impact,” Berkley-Patton shared first-hand experience and strategies for working collaboratively with diverse groups to make health programs more culturally relevant and effective.
 
Berkley-Patton’s community-engaged interventions have focused on diabetes, COVID-19, mental health, dementia, and more in socially vulnerable Kansas City communities with multi-sectoral community partnerships, particularly in African American faith-based settings.
 
“We were honored to have Dr. Berkley-Patton share her experience improving public health outcomes in Kansas City,” shared Edith Williams, PhD, MS, director of the CCHP and founding director of the Office of Health Equity Research. “The Dr. David Satcher Community Health Improvement Awards emphasizes a legacy of research collaborations that are co-created and implemented with community partnerships."
 
This year’s Satcher awards honored two University faculty and their respective primary community partners. Each community partner received a monetary award in support of their mission.
 

2025 Award Recipients

Senior Faculty Awardee

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Charles Kamen, PhD, MPH, is an associate professor in the Department of Surgery and Psychiatry in the Division of Cancer Control at the URMC. He also serves as associate director for Community Outreach and Engagement at the Wilmot Cancer Institute and chair of Health Equity Research for the University of Rochester Cancer Center NCI Community Oncology Research Program Research Base.

Kamen is a clinical psychologist by training, and his program of research focuses on cancer-related health disparities affecting sexual and gender minority and other minoritized cancer survivors. He has also contributed to the development of a range of behavioral interventions with the goal of improving the health and wellbeing of cancer patients, survivors, and their caregivers.

He also supports several of his colleagues in helping them to work with Community Advisory Boards to support research so that the outcomes directly impact the communities the research is intended to serve.

Kamen's primary community partner Linda Donahue, a clinical social worker, chose to donate the monetary award to The Trevor Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing suicide prevention and crisis intervention support for LGBTQ+ young people, in Kamen's honor.

Early-Stage Faculty Awardee

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Wyatte C. Hall, PhD, is an assistant professor of Public Health Sciences at the URMC. Hall directs the Visual Language Access and Acquisition Lab at URMC and co-directs the Future Deaf Scientists program under the Wilmot Cancer Institute, a cancer STEM research education and training program seeking to empower Deaf high school students to explore medical and science careers. He also directs the Language Deprivation track of the Deaf Child Resilience Center at Gallaudet University.

His work has significantly advanced the understanding of language acquisition’s role in quality-of-life outcomes across the lifespan for Deaf populations, fostering meaningful change in early intervention, Deaf education, and the broader public health landscape.

Hall chose to recognize Rochester Deaf Kitchen as his primary community partner. The nonprofit organization is dedicated to addressing hunger and food insecurity within the Deaf community.

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Rebecca Youmell
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