ABH empowers students & professionals through our Public Health Advocacy Fellowship.

ABH’s Public Health Advocacy Fellowship creates a connection between medicine and public health for students by offering opportunities to engage in local public health advocacy activities.

About the Program

Advocates for Better Health firmly believes that healthcare advocates play an integral part in improving public health and building healthy communities. By walking alongside community members and forming partnerships that put respect and equity at the forefront; providers can help plant seeds of change. We strive to foster advocacy in all stages of your career, from training and beyond.

Program Curriculum

The Public Health Advocacy Fellowship began in 2018 as an experiential training program for medical students, and because we know real change requires partnership and collaboration from all healthcare sectors, in 2024 we are expanded our cohort to include additional graduate-level health science students.

Through small cohorts, connecting with like-minded peers, and interacting with local leaders, students engage in the process of public policy, systemic change, and turning passion for a specific issue into action. During the program year, students build their advocacy skills through three main program components:

  1. Skills training (legislative advocacy, communications skills, etc.) provided by ABH staff

  2. Mentoring from a physician advocate, ideally with experience in the student’s area of interest, and

  3. Hands-on experience with public health advocacy, for example meeting with elected officials, working with community leaders, or publishing a letter in a news publication.

Our Fellows and Mentors

The fellowship program began with 11 medical students and physician mentors in 2018-19 cohort, and has grown to include more than 140 student/mentor pairs. We are thrilled to continue to support interdisciplinary health science students in gaining new advocacy skills and experience, and are grateful for the mentor advocates who take time to connect with their student mentees.

Read more about each year’s cohort of students, mentors, and their advocacy interests here.

Our Funders

This program is made possible through the generous support from individual donors.

Additional support is provided by:

Founding support was provided by Advocates for Better Health | The Foundation and by Dr. Pete Dehnel. Dr. Dehnel is a former ABH President and has been involved in efforts to reduce tobacco’s impact on the lives of people for over 15 years with tenured involvement with city, county and state efforts to eliminate second hand smoke and include e-cigarettes in smoke-free ordinances. Dr. Dehnel wishes to impart his love for advocacy to future physicians through his support of this fellowship.  

What Fellowship Alumni Are Saying

  • “Coming into medical school, I had a reluctance and fear to engage in advocacy and community engagement work because I believed that my voice was not needed and that any ideas I had most certainly must’ve already been thought about and worked on by someone wiser or with more experience than me. The Fellowship completely changed that."

    2021-2022 Fellow

  • “Having this experience makes me more confident to advocate for various public health causes that I believe in as a future physician. I have realized how important it is to be an advocate and how my perspective will be taken seriously by many law makers and leaders.”

    2022-23 Fellow

  • “I was able to get my mentee involved with a community group on a project I've been wanting to work on. It was incredible to see her step into a leadership role and I'm so glad to have gained a colleague in this space.”

    2019-2020 Mentor

  • “The biggest thing was the understanding that it doesn’t have to be ‘I’m an advocate or a doctor’ - it can be both. [It was] the understanding that I can use the power I have now to show up in little ways. I can do little things and have those little things make a difference in the overall picture.”

    2021-22 Fellow

  • "After participating as a mentor, I am more likely to engage than I was before this year. I had taken a step back for a minute due to other work/life stressors and this was really helpful to reconnect and reinvigorate the work that can be done in this realm."

    2022-2023 Mentor

  • The Fellowship illuminated various pathways and ways of being an advocate and allowed us to explore each of those to find a good fit.

    2023-2024 Fellow