Tracey Smith

Background

About Tracey Smith

Dr. Tracey Smith is the Executive Associate Director for Public Health Practice at Illinois Public Health Association (IPHA) since October 2021. Previously she was the Director of Population Health Integration at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine (SIU SOM) and the first Executive Director of the Office of Community Initiatives and Complex Care. She received her Doctorate in Nursing Practice with a focus on health literacy and public health management and a masters in community health nursing with a minor in multicultural nursing. She has been involved in healthcare in numerous roles allowing her to build skills to engage multiple types of health care providers and customers. She has managed over 90 million dollars in grant/program funding aimed at Population Health and leads programs providing support services to local police systems, schools, healthcare clinics, and community-based organizations. At IPHA she leads efforts in the writing and executing of innovative grant/funding aimed at transforming the Illinois healthcare system to be a system of interconnectivity between local health departments, federally qualified healthcare centers, hospitals, and community-based organizations. She has led the state in their Pandemic Health Navigator program to respond to the needs arising from Covid-19. This program had over 60 community-based organization partners and 20 FQHC partners leading a team of over 400 community health workers responding to individual and community needs. At SIU SOM she worked to build the capacity of the school of medicine to provide education to all levels of medical students and healthcare disciplines especially in the areas of population health and prevention, health disparities, community and patient engagement, and conduct research with a focus on engagement, health literacy, and social disparities and leading efforts to change the landscape of communities to become communities of health. She has presented locally, regionally, and nationally over 40 times in the last 5 years on topics around changing the landscape of a community to improve health for all residents.