Page 12 - 2019-2020 Endowment Report | University of Rochester
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Addressing
health care
inequities.
Natalie Leblanc, PhD, MPH, BSN, RN
Harriet J. Kitzman Endowed Fellow in
Health Disparities
In 2012, Harriet J. Kitzman ’61W (MS), ’84N (PhD),
the Loretta C. FordProfessor of Nursing from 1995
to 2005, established a fund to support early- to
midcareer faculty researchers within the University’s
School of Nursing. After her death in the spring of
2020, the fund was renamed the Harriet J. Kitzman
Endowed Fellow in Health Disparities.
arly in her career, Natalie Leblanc, PhD,
MPH, BSN, RN learned the havoc infectious
E disease can wreak on the afflicted, their
families, and the greater community, first as a
Peace Corps volunteer and later as a technical
assistant with the Carter Center’s Guinea Worm
Eradication Program in Ghana, West Africa.*
While in Northern Ghana, Leblanc also began
researching prevention and care for HIV and
STIs (sexually transmitted infections).
Over her almost 20-year career in public health
and later as a nurse researcher, Leblanc has
managed and implemented programs aimed at
disease prevention both globally and domestically.
*Guinea Worm, once endemic in Ghana, is a parasitic
disease that results from drinking contaminated water.
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