The Common Health Challenge is an annual call-to-action for Common Health Coalition members and partners to unite around a health system priority that strengthens collaboration between health care and public health.
This year’s inaugural Challenge spotlights Community Health Workers (CHWs) as trusted professionals who build bridges between clinical, public health, and community organizations to facilitate access to services and improve health.
Integrating Community Health Workers can drive meaningful progress in health equity, strengthen community resilience, and deliver better health outcomes while improving value.
Join us for this interactive kickoff event to find out how your organization can be part of the Challenge.
A practicing physician and public health leader — serves as Chair of the Common Health Coalition and is Sternberg Family Professor of Leadership at the City College of New York. Dr. Chokshi previously served as the 43rd Health Commissioner of New York City. From 2020-2022, he led the City’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including its historic campaign to vaccinate over 6 million New Yorkers. Earlier, he was the inaugural Chief Population Health Officer at NYC Health + Hospitals (H+H), the largest public healthcare system in the nation, where he also served as CEO of the H+H Accountable Care Organization.
Dr. Chokshi has practiced primary care internal medicine at Bellevue Hospital since 2014. He has held successive senior leadership roles that span the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.
A Rhodes Scholar and White House Fellow, he is nationally recognized as a transformational leader, a clinical innovator, a policy expert, and an advocate for a stronger and more equitable health system.
Dr. Bechara Choucair is the executive vice president and chief health officer for Kaiser Permanente, one of America’s leading integrated health systems with more than 12.5 million members. His work includes the creation of the nation’s largest social health network to meet the housing, food and transportation needs of Kaiser Permanente’s members. He also manages the organization’s community health portfolio, including $3.4 billion dedicated to supporting medical financial assistance and charitable care as well as grants and community health initiatives.
From January through November 2021, Dr. Choucair served as the White House national COVID-19 vaccinations coordinator. In that role he focused on coordinating the timely, safe, and equitable administration of COVID-19 vaccinations for the U.S. population. During his tenure, more than 450 million doses of the vaccine were administered nationwide. He returned to Kaiser Permanente in December 2021. Dr. Choucair served as Chicago’s Public Health Commissioner from 2009 to 2014.
Among other accolades, Dr. Choucair has been named by Modern Healthcare as one of the 50 Most Influential Health Executives in the U.S., one of the Most Influential People in Healthcare, and as one of the Top 25 Innovators in Healthcare. A family physician by training, he completed his Family Practice Residency at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. He holds an MD from the American University of Beirut and a master’s degree in health care management from the University of Texas at Dallas.
Chelsea Cipriano, MPH serves as Managing Director of the Common Health Coalition, a not-for-profit organization created to help ensure the U.S. health system is prepared to confront the next crisis.
The seasoned public health practitioner leads the work with chair Dave A. Chokshi, M.D., MSc., and a group of health leaders across the country with the common goal of better health for all. The Coalition is working to improve partnerships between healthcare and public health organizations so the health system can better handle the threats of both today and tomorrow.
Prior to this role, Chelsea served as Executive Director of Government Affairs and Deputy Public Information Officer (for the COVID-19, mpox responses) for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Chelsea also served within the New York City Mayor’s Office – first as a Health Policy Advisor and then as Deputy Chief of Staff for the Office of Management and Budget. She has held additional roles in public health at multiple levels of government focused on policy, emergency response, and partnerships, including with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Chelsea began her career at the intersection of health care and public health in the back of an ambulance as an Emergency Medical Technician, and earned her Master of Public Health and Bachelor of Arts degrees from Tulane University.
Philip Cooper is a Western North Carolina Native, an accomplished reentry expert, and criminal justice reform advocate. He is the Founder and Chief Change Agent of Operation Gateway Inc., whose mission is to decrease recidivism by addressing the social determinants of health of returning citizens. He is the founder of Voices of Affrilachia, which is a state funded initiative that is addressing the behavioral health stigma in the Marginalized Communities of Western North Carolina. He is an MLK Service Award Recipient, the Attorney General’s Dogwood Award Recipient, he is the recipient of the 2024 Recovery Role Model Award for the Addiction Professionals of North Carolina, 2024 Innovator of the Year for SAMHSA, Neighborhood Builder for Bank of America, Appalachian Leadership Institute Fellow, and Leading with Conviction Fellow with Just Leadership USA. He is an ambassador for Just Economics of WNC and is the Pastor of Friends of John Recovery Ministry. Philip believes that those closest to the problem are the closest to the solution and this is why he is fully committed to teaching people how to leverage their lived experience to change the world.
Dr. Rishi Manchanda is CEO at HealthBegins, a national mission-driven strategy and implementation firm that helps Medicaid-serving managed care plans, health systems, and social sector clients to exceed health care equity and social needs performance requirements, and achieve long-term impact for people and communities harmed by societal practices. Dr. Manchanda's areas of expertise include building and scaling value-based care models for historically marginalized populations, embedding and advancing equity in clinics and communities, and designing and leading national and regional policy initiatives to improve population health.
Dr. Manchanda served as the founding director of social medicine for a network of community health centers in south central Los Angeles, as the first lead physician for homeless veterans at the Greater Los Angeles VA, and as the chief medical officer for a multi-billion dollar employer with a large rural agricultural workforce. In his 2013 book - The Upstream Doctors - and TED Talk, he introduced “Upstreamists”, a new model of healthcare professionals and leaders who improve outcomes by addressing the social and structural drivers of health equity - patients’ social needs, community-level social determinants of health, and structural determinants of health equity including structural racism. Based in Los Angeles, Dr. Manchanda serves as a board member and advisor for several national nonprofits, companies, and initiatives that promote health equity, economic opportunity, and participatory democracy.
Dr. Shreya Kangovi is a physician, scientist and the Chief Executive Officer of IMPaCT Care a public benefit corporation that enables health organizations to build effective, sustainable Community Health Workforces. Dr. Kangovi led the team that designed IMPaCT, the most widely used and evidence-based Community Health Worker model in the country. It has been tested in four randomized controlled trials and has proven benefits in cost, health and patient satisfaction– $2,500 annual net savings per patient, improved mental health, 66% of total hospital days compared with matched controls, 94% net promoter score and a $2.47:1 ROI. IMPaCT has been used by over 70 organizations– e.g. Kaiser Permanente, TennCare, CVS Health– across 20 different states. Dr. Kangovi has led policy efforts along with a coalition of over 30 organizations including NAACP, APHA, SGIM, and the American Diabetes Association. She has worked with the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives to produce bipartisan, bicameral letters in support of community health workers, and helped Senator Casey’s office to draft legislation that would create an optional Medicaid benefit for community health worker supports. President Biden included her policy proposals and referenced her studies in his caregiving economy campaign platform.
Dr. Kangovi has authored numerous scientific publications and received over $30M in funding, including federal grants from the NIH and PCORI. She was named one of Modern Healthcare’s Top 25 Innovators, is the recipient of the Academy Health Research Impact Award, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Equity Award, an elected member of the American College of Physicians and a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Roundtable on the Promotion of Health Equity. Dr. Kangovi has appeared on MSNBC and contributed to CNN and the Washington Post. Her work has been featured in the New York Times and the Atlantic. She is an adjunct professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Olusimbo (Simbo) Ige is a strategic leader in public health with an exceptional trajectory leading public health programs and fostering organizational excellence at the local, national, and global scales. Her public health career spans nearly two decades. Currently serving as Commissioner at the Chicago Department of Public Health, she is the first black woman to serve in this role in a permanent capacity. She works with hundreds of public health leaders and partners to provide guidance, services, and strategies to make Chicago a healthier and safer city. Before her appointment as the Health Commissioner, she served as the Managing Director of Programs at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation promoting national partnerships for equitable and accountable healthcare and public health systems. She also previously served as the Assistant Commissioner for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and was awarded the champion of public health for cultivating impactful partnerships and driving systemic change. With a robust educational foundation encompassing multiple degrees and a slew of prestigious awards, Olusimbo is a dedicated advocate for health equity and health systems transformation.
