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Dr. LaQuandra S. Nesbitt, a board-certified family physician, recently took the position of director of the District of Columbia Department of Health after serving as director of the Louisville Metro Department of Public Health and Wellness in Louisville, Kentucky since July 2011. That independent health department is home to the Center for Health Equity and provides programs and services in the areas of clinical services, community and environmental health, and preparedness. 

As health director in Louisville, Nesbitt was committed to five strategic priorities: creating a culture of health and wellness in Metro Louisville, an expanded focus on social determinants of health and health equity, strengthening public-private partnerships, increased connection between public health and clinical medicine, and implementing an outcomes driven approach to program and policy development.

During her tenure there, the agency released the first Louisville Metro Health Equity Report, established the Mayor’s Healthy Hometown Leadership Team and expanded that movement to include tobacco prevention and control and chronic disease prevention and management, developed public-private partnerships to implement the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Community Transformation Grant program, and worked with all local health care systems to complete their community health needs assessments and community health improvement plans. Nesbitt also served as co-chair of the Mayor’s Violence Prevention Work Group.

Prior to her leadership role in Louisville, Nesbitt served in administrative positions with the District of Columbia Department of Health and was an assistant professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine and the senior coordinator for Health Disparities and Policy Research Initiatives in the Office of Policy and Planning at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Nesbitt received her Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, her medical degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine and a Master of Public Health degree in health care management and policy from the Harvard School of Public Health. Her academic interests include racial and ethnic disparities in health outcomes and health care services, workforce diversity, and improving access to care for the uninsured and underinsured through population health management, policy and health services research. Nesbitt is also a published author and served as an executive editor of "Population Health—Management, Policy and Technology, First Edition," and she has served on a number of community boards and councils.