IU Clinical Professor and Assistant Chair of the Department of Applied Health Science, Catherine Sherwood-Laughlin, was recently elected president of the executive board that oversees all public health issues the IPHA deals with on a daily basis.
Sherwood-Laughlin ?expressed enthusiasm and excitement towards this milestone and is eager to work very closely with staff to address needed health ?concerns.
“Public health is fun and challenging at the same time,” Sherwood-Laughlin said. “There is always an issue to respond to.”
Prior to this election, Sherwood-Laughlin served a minimum of eight years on board, serving as vice president and president elect within that time frame. The executive board appointed Sherwood-Laughlin for a nomination to the position and she accepted and ran unopposed.
Sherwood-Laughlin’s passion and interest toward the public health field started when she was junior in college at Central Michigan ?University, she said.
She had taken a community health class on a whim and ended up switching her major due to her newly sparked interest.
After graduating within her five year plan, Sherwood-Laughlin started her public health career teaching health in middle school.
Once Sherwood-Laughlin gained her master’s degree at Ball State University, she started to serve as a health educator for a local county health department.
“I worked with the aging population, to HIV and AIDS prevention in teenagers, to educating children about good-touch bad-touch and everything in between,” ?Sherwood-Laughlin said.
After receiving her master’s degree, Sherwood-Laughlin arrived at IU to pursue her doctorate in the field of public health and has stayed with the University for a total of 23 years.
Sherwood-Laughlin prides herself on being a public health professional that gets to teach as well. She enjoys teaching because, through her past experiences, she believes she learns as much as her students do in her own classroom.
“It is never too early to start public health education,” Sherwood-Laughlin said. “We need to make sure we are informing, educating and reminding people on a daily basis, especially to those who are not willing to receive this message yet.”
The main task Sherwood-Laughlin hopes to achieve as president is to find a creative method to keep the low-risk individuals at low risk and have the healthy remain healthy. She hopes to find a means to maintain this ?positive behavior.
Mood, weather and individual circumstances, among others, all have different effects towards an individual’s behavior. Sherwood-Laughlin said she feels the need to listen to the community in order to find a solution to this dilemma.
In looking toward the future of public health for the state of Indiana, she hopes to expand membership and tap closely into the more rural parts of the state in an effort to engage more public health professionals.
This result could lead to other initiatives including maintaining skills, improving on outdated techniques, provide networking opportunities and allowing an overall work collaboration ?throughout Indiana.
“Public health initiatives have been around forever and still need to be,” Sherwood-Laughlin said. “The future can be more predominant in complimenting mental health.”
