In the late 1960s, University of Kentucky College of Public Health (CPH) alumna Shalini Parekh’s parents immigrated to the U.S. from India to pursue opportunities. Her parents are one of her strongest encouragers and continue to push Shalini to advocate more for herself.
Today, Shalini is now the Assistant Commissioner in the Division of Population Health Assessment at the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH). The division’s mission is to be a trusted state entity in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of public health data to assess and improve the health and well-being of the people of Tennessee.
In this role, Shalini oversees the division (approximately 40 staff members) that houses state data surveillance systems which collects, analyzes, and reports on multitudes of data. Some examples include the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), Hospital Discharge Data, the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring Survey (PRAMS), and the Tennessee Cancer Registry.
Shalini oversees program functionality, reviews and approves deliverables, creates data training, oversees the budget, handles legal issues with the General Counsel (around data sharing), and interacts daily with important stakeholders.
“My position contributes to the mission of protecting, promoting, and improving the health and prosperity of people in Tennessee by ensuring that accurate and complete data is provided on important health indicators so that programs and policies can be appropriately informed,” said Shalini. “Without data, we wouldn’t know where to direct health department resources or be able to gauge whether current services are achieving their goals.
Finding a public health spark
Shalini’s spark for public health started when she was working in cancer research at the University of Kentucky’s Markey Cancer Center as a full-time laboratory technician.
“During this experience, I knew that I wanted to be involved in health, in some capacity,” said Shalini. “By happenstance, one day I was sitting next to someone on the shuttle bus (who was previously in one of my undergraduate classes) and she mentioned public health to me. I remember jumping straight on my computer to search this field and was amazed how much this fit me.”
From there, Shalini took off like a rocket ship. She soon enrolled in the Master of Public Health (MPH) program, with a concentration in Epidemiology, at CPH.
“I have so many fond memories while enrolled in the MPH program,” said Shalini. “I remember really bonding with my classmates at the American Public Health Association (APHA) conference in Atlanta, which was my first public health event. I was amazed at the presentations, research posters, and the other public health professionals. A group of us submitted a poster to APHA and won the Student Poster Award!”
Shalini remained involved as an MPH student, serving as president of the Student Public Health Association (SPHA). Shalini is thankful to Mr. John Webb, Director of Students at CPH at the time, who really helped build her confidence to serve in this student leadership capacity.
Furthermore, she hosted a booth on skin cancer at Hispanic Health Fair, volunteering at a non-profit, and other events that helped her peers get connected to each other.
After graduating in 2002 with her MPH, Shalini joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an emerging infectious disease (EID) fellow. Shalini remained at the CDC for the next 7 years and eventually worked as a public health analyst in the division of diabetes translation and sexually transmitted diseases.
A year later, Shalini found herself working in Washington, D.C., for a non-profit, the American Psychological Association (APA), running a CDC grant project that strove to reduce health disparities by educating local stakeholders on social determinants of health, providing grants to implement projects, and providing capacity building services to execute those grants.
“I was traveling and presenting trainings on health equity and social determinants of health (a new concept at the time) to staff from state and local government, non-profits, faith-based organizations, and other organizations, that target the socioeconomically disadvantaged,” said Shalini. “Part of the training involved participants sharing examples of health disparities in their communities and the experience opened my eyes to what true disparity looks. I found a fierce passion for training and addressing social determinants of health to approach health equity.”
Leading projects at the Tennessee Department of Health
Followed by other professional opportunities in public health, including as a research associate at the National Cancer Institute and director of epidemiology at the Center for Cancer Prevention and Control at the Maryland Department of Health, Shalini is now leading exciting public health projects while overseeing the Population Health Assessment division at TDH.
Some of these projects include creating an interstate data exchange program that establishes legal data exchange agreements with neighboring states in sharing hospital discharge data.
“Many patients in Tennessee, particularly those at the border, go to other state hospitals for their care and, up until now, data on their visit wasn’t included in our hospital records,” says Shalini. “This innovative program aims to fill those gaps, so we get a more complete picture of hospital data.”
Another project includes linking data from two disparate datasets to make a novel, third dataset. Division staff linked mothers and babies in the PRAMS dataset with any hospital stay found in hospital discharge data—allowing them to follow mothers through their healthcare a year after they’ve responded to the survey.
Shalini’s division is also investigating a “cancer cluster” that was suspected in Shelby County, Tennessee.
“Using data from the TN Cancer Registry, staff determined whether there was indeed an excess of the expected number of cancer cases in a geographic area resulting from an environmental exposure,” said Shalini. “After rigorous analysis, it was determined that a cancer cluster was not present.”
Becoming a health champion and career advice
As a health champion for public health, Shalini believes that love, fun, fellowship, and passion are words that describe her. Furthermore, Shalini believes that it’s important to make decisions based on data and science.
“A health champion is someone who feels passionately about every resident in TN living their absolutely optimal lives, however that may manifest, and to do this, we must look to health data to determine where resources are best spent,” said Shalini. “This blends into my definition of public health because both strive to provide optimal lives for the people we serve.”
Finding public health (for many) is sometimes an unconventional process, stemming from the desire to help people and not knowing where to start. For Shalini, it happened on a bus in a casual conversation with a former classmate. Shalin offers some advice for those seeking the possibility of an education or career in public health.
“I always advise new graduates to apply for as many fellowship and internship opportunities offered at agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other government and private organizations,” says Shalini. “They can be competitive and sometimes only open for short periods of time, but you must try to get your foot in the door.”
“Don’t be afraid to take reasonable risks, travel diverse roads in the field, and never ever stop learning and growing, adds Shalini. “I started my career doing something I did not really enjoy, and it was only through my experience in other positions that I discovered where my passions lie. It wasn’t something I automatically knew upon graduating, I had to go out there and experience different job roles to determine the best fit.”
To learn more about our people, programs, and passion for public health, visit cph.uky.edu. To learn more about our alumni services, and ways to stay engaged, visit here.
