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Fellowship News

Posted Nov 22, 2008

Ray Lopez (2008-2009 Fellow) received the 2008 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Community Health Leaders Award

Press Release:

NEW YORK HEALTH ADVOCATE RAY LOPEZ ONE OF TEN AMERICANS CHOSEN TO RECEIVE $125,000 NATIONAL

AWARD FOR IMPROVING LOCAL HEALTH CONDITIONS

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to Present Lopez with the 2008 Community Health Leaders Award for Teaching Impoverished East Harlem Residents how to Resolve Environmental Health Issues Plaguing their Homes

PRINCETON, NJ (October 27, 2008) – The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation today announced Ray Lopez, an environmental health manager who works inside the poorest homes of East Harlem, as one of ten exemplary Americans who will receive the Community Health Leaders Award for 2008. The distinguished annual award honors extraordinary men and women from all over the country who conquer huge obstacles and take commanding action in local communities to tackle some of the most challenging health and health care problems facing the nation. Awardees are celebrated with national recognition and $125,000.

This year, more than 800 nominations were submitted from across the United States. Through a rigorous process, the Foundation selected ten outstanding individuals, all of whom have worked to improve health conditions in their communities with exceptional creativity, courage and commitment. The Foundation chose Lopez this year for helping hundreds of disadvantaged East Harlem residents resolve environmental conditions infecting their homes and affecting their health. Lopez will accept his award on October 29 at a special ceremony honoring each of the 2008 recipients during the Community Health Leaders Annual Meeting in San Diego.

"Ray Lopez' efforts to aid residents in addressing environmental health conditions have provided a foundation for them to become activists in tenant organizations to improve living conditions overall," said Janice Ford Griffin, national program director for the award. "His work has improved training and raised the bar for performance for environmental health workers throughout the city."

Lopez is environmental program manager at Little Sisters of the Assumption Family Health Service (LSAFHS), a nonprofit organization assisting impoverished residents in East Harlem.

He visits disadvantaged families tormented daily by mold, rodent and insect infestation and other environmental health problems festering in their homes. Lopez empowers families by educating them on the root causes of their environmental health issues and teaching them firsthand the skills to resolve their hazardous situations. In-turn, families often lend their newfound expertise to neighbors facing similar conditions - multiplying the number of poor households receiving needed help. A central part of Lopez' environmental health work is combating soaring asthma rates in East Harlem neighborhoods. He is widely viewed as the driving force behind the family asthma program, which falls under his jurisdiction at LSAFHS. Lopez, who recalls being treated for asthma in hospital emergency rooms as a child, teaches families how to safely reduce and control home environmental dangers that contribute to airway inflammation and trigger asthma. Internal studies at LSAFHS show that his asthma intervention techniques reduce emergency room visits, hospitalizations and school absences among the residents he visits by more than 50 percent. His asthma prevention and reduction efforts have earned LSAFHS the US Environmental Protection Agency's Environmental Quality Award. Lopez also works to eliminate bedbugs, a resurgent issue for families in East Harlem and other parts of New York City.

"I am delighted and honored to be recognized as a Community Health Leader by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation," said Lopez. "This award has energized me to deepen our environmental health work in the community and to redouble our efforts to help build broader and stronger coalitions to improve housing conditions and other services that affect health and quality of life while preserving affordability."  For the most part, Lopez' environmental health interventions in East Harlem aid the lives of families who fit into one of two categories: extremely poor, and primarily Mexican, immigrants renting small and deteriorating apartments; or underserved public housing residents who are overwhelmingly African American and Hispanic. Lopez encourages the families he visits to view their unhealthy household environments not as conditions they are forced to bear but as dynamics they can help change through self-advocacy. In a letter of recommendation supporting Lopez' nomination for the award, Reverend Earl Kooperkamp of St. Mary's Episcopal Church, wrote that Lopez teaches the families he serves how to "become active participants in their struggle for better health."
Lopez and each of the 2008 awardees will join the ranks of 153 Community Health Leaders in 45 states and Puerto Rico honored since 1993. The $125,000 award consists of a $20,000 personal gift and $105,000 to support their work. In addition to Lopez in New York, this year, Community Health Leaders hail from Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Alabama, North Dakota, California, Utah, Massachusetts and Hawaii. The Foundation is accepting nominations for the 2009 Community Health Leaders Award through November 7, 2008. For details on how to submit a nomination, including eligibility requirements and selection criteria, visit www.communityhealthleaders.org.