From Public Health Training to Policy Impact: Lessons from the Tigerlily Beacon Symposium

By Eliza Lloyd, Health Law and Policy Clinic Student
Second year MPH student in Health Policy at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

What brought me to the School of Public Health and my master’s program was a passion for public health problems with a lack of formal training to be able to address them. Over the last year and a half, I’ve gained a greater understanding of health care systems, health economics, and payment reform. I joined the HLS Health Law and Policy Clinic for the opportunity to apply my knowledge to real-world problems.

At the Clinic, I’ve been working with a health care provider to assess funding and reimbursement options for their patient navigation program. Their program focuses on providing services that address social determinants of health (SDoH) such as food, housing, and financial insecurity. A “community resource specialist” provides navigation services including information on payment assistance for food, utilities, medication, making transportation arrangements, referring patients to food or housing supports, and providing patient education and advocacy. Such navigation interventions have been shown to improve patient access and outcomes, particularly for folks from marginalized communities who face cultural, linguistic, and/or financial barriers to accessing care.

On November 8, I had the pleasure and privilege of attending Tigerlily Foundation’s 3^rd Annual Beacon Symposium: Transformation with Patients Leading in Healthcare, in Washington, D.C. Tigerlily is a national 501(c)(3) non-profit women’s health and oncology organization dedicated to empowering young women before, during, and after cancer through education, advocacy, and hands-on support. This year’s symposium featured 3 panels moderated by Tigerlily’s President and CEO, Maimah Karmo, and highlighting experiences from breast cancer survivors, patient rights advocates, and policy experts. For me, this event was really an illustration of what policy looks like in practice.

Here are some of my key takeaways from attending this symposium:

1. Students should ground classroom learning with patient experience. Policy development and evaluation cannot exist without this perspective.

Much of the discussion at the symposium revolved around how to include and highlight patient experience in policy decision-making through testimonies to policymakers and inclusion of people with lived experience on decision-making boards and executive teams. For me, learning how instrumental navigators were at helping survivors navigate their cancer treatment was eye-opening. Understanding the emotional benefit navigation provides, in additional to the tangible benefits (scheduling appointments, arranging transportation or childcare, finding providers, etc.) underscored the value of the work my client was doing.

2. “Nothing about us without us” (Letitia Boughton Price, CHW, LCSW)

Letitia Boughton Price is the Co-Executive Director of the Illinois Community Health Worker Association. She spoke about the importance of inviting CHWs to be part of the conversation, specifically for Illinois policymakers as they were developing CHW reimbursement policy. “And if they don’t invite you,” Letitia says, “bring your own seat to the table.” I was able to implement this lesson in my work already! In my Clinic project, we’ve been communicating with program administrators, but I realized as Letitia was speaking, that the community resource specialist was not there. At the next meeting, I asked our clients if they felt it would be valuable to have the Navigator at the next meeting and bring her perspective into the conversation. That meeting is scheduled for next month and I’m eager to hear her points of view on the options we’ve outlined for them.

3. Allyship is active

We talked a lot about how lived experience shapes your perspective and power as an advocate. But with power comes the burden of time and emotional trauma for patients who must retell their stories over and over to advocate for the issues they care about – a burden that often falls on patients and communities who need the help the most. Unlike many at this symposium, I have not faced significant challenges navigating healthcare systems. Given this, I thought a lot about what my role is as an advocate for these issues. As a soon-to-be Harvard graduate, potential future policy maker, and someone for whom the color of my skin does not invoke that same level of bias it might for others, I can use my privilege to uplift the voices of people with lived experiences and give credence to others’ stories.

As I begin my career after graduation in (hopefully) some sort of policy role, thinking back on this experience will be an important reminder to center my work around the beneficiaries’ experiences, to hold seats at the table for those who will be most impacted by my decisions, and to be active in my allyship by using my position to advocate, in the big ways and the small ways.