Jeneczka Roman (left) and Alexis Walls (right)

health policy

The Alumni Duo Shaping a Healthier Massachusetts

Jeneczka Roman and Alexis Walls, MPH alums and colleagues at the Massachusetts Public Health Association, discuss policy advocacy, making a real difference, and the advice they would give their younger selves.

While every student has a unique story behind how they arrived at the School of Public Health, graduates—united by the School’s mission to advance the health of all—often tread similar paths and engage in shared professional circles. This was the case for Jeneczka Roman (SPH’20) and Alexis Walls (SPH’17), MPH alums and colleagues at the Massachusetts Public Health Association (MPHA).

Roman, assistant director of advocacy and communication at MPHA, and Walls, assistant campaign director, met virtually in 2020 when MPHA, like many other offices, was operating fully remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. After graduating from SPH earlier in the year, Roman assumed her first role at MPHA in March. Six months later, she sat on the hiring committee that interviewed Walls. The two have worked together on MPHA’s campaign policy and field team ever since.

When the pair finally met in person for the first time in June 2021, Walls recalls giving Roman a big hug. She always made herself available, says Walls. “It felt like seeing like a long-lost friend.”

Roman echoes Walls’ sentiment. MPHA is a small organization, and everyone is very collaborative and supportive, she says. While Roman and Walls each lead different streams of work, Roman says the two now share an office and often converse with one another about the challenges they are experiencing and try to troubleshoot strategies to keep moving forward.

The work of MPHA’s staff is guided by both a policy council and a board, each composed of people from a variety of backgrounds spread across the state, including Craig Andrade, associate dean for practice and director of the Activist Lab at SPH, who serves on MPHA’s board.

“Policy work can be so incremental. While the goal is to pass a law, there are so many little victories along the way, and I think our team has been so great at celebrating those victories and really supporting one another,” says Roman. “When we feel a little bit discouraged, we give each other a pep talk and encourage one another to see the big picture of how far we have come and how the work that we are doing now is building toward success,”

Impressed by her colleagues’ work to shape a healthier Massachusetts, Toni Troop, a communications consultant with MPHA, wrote of the pair, “We couldn’t be more grateful to have this powerful duo on staff at the premier public health advocacy organization in Massachusetts. There’s so much more to say about the impact they are having and how the data, research, and analytic skills along with the public health and equity framework they developed at BUSPH helped prepare them for these roles.”

SPH followed up with Roman and Walls to discuss their policy advocacy, how to make a real difference, and the advice they would give their younger selves.

What led you each to public health, and why did you end up choosing the BUSPH MPH program?

Alexis Walls: When I was young, I grew up in a neighborhood that was predominantly Black, and low-to-middle income. I loved where I lived, but as I got older, my father was promoted in his job and [our income] went up. Due to an increase in violence in our neighborhood, my family decided that it was best to move to a different part of Baltimore County. When we moved, we moved into a neighborhood that looked completely different. I went from being one of many Black kids in my class to being one of few in a predominantly white and Asian community.

I started to notice that there was a difference in the types of opportunities and the types of resources that I had access to in this new community compared to my peers where I had grown up—also, differences in outcomes over time. That is something that really sparked my interest in better understanding systems. At the same time, my mother did a bit of public health research when she was in her graduate teaching program. She is the one who first exposed me to public health and encouraged me to explore that as a as a career option.

Ultimately, I applied to BUSPH because it seemed like a program that really cared about doing work in community and having partnerships and relationships with communities—not just keeping all that work within the academic institution. I cared a lot about practice. So, I packed up and left Georgia, where I had gone to undergrad, and moved to Boston. I am grateful for that experience because it has opened the door to a lot of different opportunities, including the role that I’m in right now.

Jeneczka Roman: Going into undergrad, I wanted to work in healthcare. I was interested in the link between chronic disease and neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s, especially among like Latine populations given my own family experience. I went to BU undergrad and entered Sargent College [of Health and Rehabilitative Sciences] to start building a foundation for a career in healthcare either in nursing or as a physician. But as we did more clinical coursework, I became more interested in looking upstream. I was introduced to the concept of public health through my undergraduate coursework at BU, and from there I knew I wanted to do public health.

Upon graduating, I spent a couple of years at Children’s HealthWatch, doing interviews in Spanish and English, talking to the parents of children under the age of 5 to get a better understanding of how state policies impact the health of children and their families. That sparked a desire to work on policy advocacy because from that experience it became so abundantly clear how even small changes to policy at the state level have far-reaching impacts on the health of communities and oftentimes, these changes are made without input from the communities most impacted. Later through the clinic, we worked with a couple of families to support them in submitting testimony on some of the legislation, and that to me felt like coming home. I said to myself, “I want to be doing this every day.”

After a couple of years [at Children’s HealthWatch], I applied to BUSPH. I was really interested because of the dual certificate opportunity. BUSPH was one of the only programs where I felt like I could both dive deeper into community health and prepare to work at the policy level after graduation. Also, I was first introduced to the Massachusetts Public Health Association while a student, so without BUSPH, I do not know if I would be where I am today.

For those who are not familiar, could you explain what MPHA is and what you do?

Roman: The Massachusetts Public Health Association is a small and mighty non-profit policy advocacy organization that works to promote the fundamental building blocks of good health through coalition organizing, capacity building, and policy advocacy. Our focus is on state policies and programs that prevent injury and illness because we know that good health does not start and does not end in the doctor’s office. Instead, 90% of health is created within the social and structural conditions in which people live, work, and play. Because of this, we work in partnership with other organizations to promote clean air, stronger public health protections, reliable public transit, and safe, stable housing.

Walls: There are three different ways that we partner as an organization. When there is an area of work where MPHA has the expertise, capacity, and relationships that position us to take a leadership role in convening a coalition, then that is what we do. There are a couple of areas of our work, such as expanding access to regional transit, where it has made sense for us to step in and delegate across the coalitions that we work with. Another way [we partner] is through solidarity organizing. There are so many different grassroots, community-based organizations that are already leading great work, so we say, “Okay, we are going to put our weight behind these organizations and the movement that they are pushing for.”

Then, the last way that we partner is through capacity building. We recognize that there are a lot of issues that we, as an organization, do not have capacity to take on but that are important to improving public health statewide, so when there are organizations already working at the local level but maybe need a little bit of support—whether it be around how to build out a coalition, how to develop strategy, how to execute a campaign, or training on how the legislative process works—MPHA provides support in those areas as well.

What is something that you are enjoying working on now in your job and what is something you are looking forward to?

Roman: I have been enjoying continuing to deepen the relationships with our movement partners, such as Homes for All Massachusetts, which is a statewide formation of grassroots housing justice groups that are working to advance [legislation] to lift the ban on rent control and to establish a foreclosure prevention program. These two policies would help residents across the Commonwealth remain safely housed and lay the foundation for longer-term solutions to the housing crisis our state is currently facing. I am very much looking forward to working with our public health and social service partners to put together panels at upcoming Housing Committee hearings.

Walls: The thing that I have been enjoying working on most recently has been our [coalition’s] work to pass a bill that would improve regional transit. Last session, we filed our first bill and part of it passed—but this session we refiled it. We are grateful for the Legislature and the Governor’s response to one of the major requests within the bill: increasing funding for regional transit authorities statewide. In the fiscal year ’24 budget, they allocated an additional $56 million in operating funds for this purpose. [This] was a huge step forward in the campaign. What I am really excited about now is working with our coalition to continue executing campaign activities that hopefully push the needle and convince the Joint Committee on Transportation to report the bill favorably out of committee.

These both sound like issues that BUSPH students would be also very interested in. Are there ways that students can get involved with MPHA?

Roman: Yes, there are many opportunities for BUSPH students to get involved. One simple way is just to sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date with all our actions and events that are happening, like on regional transit authorities and on housing. Also, following MPHA on socials is another great way to stay connected. We use our platforms to amplify our partner action alerts and notify our followers about upcoming hearings, sign-on letter opportunities, and other advocacy opportunities. Then, when there are opportunities for action, I encourage folks to submit testimony to their legislators, sign on to letters, and attend public actions because the more we pressure the legislature to move these bills out of committee, the more successful we will be in moving along the process.

What would you say to folks who already sign petitions or call their legislators and who might be questioning whether what they are doing is truly making a difference. From your perspective within MPHA, what effect do those actions have?

Walls: They are incredibly helpful. One of the things we often talk about when we [teach] legislative advocacy 101 workshops is the role of the constituent as it relates to the power structure within the legislature. Oftentimes, people push back and ask, “Does the constituent really have power?” And we always emphasize three things: One, by the simple fact that you have the power to vote your legislator in or out of office, that means that they are inclined to listen to what you have to say. The second thing that we talk about is expertise. Maybe a legislator was a lawyer before coming to the State House, or perhaps they were an educator. They might be experts on some issues, but they are not experts on all, and they are not necessarily experts on your community.

As public health professionals, the voices of students make a huge difference because legislators and their staff rely upon what they are hearing from constituents to better understand how these issues are impacting communities and what can be done about them. The third thing we talk about is how it may not feel like your one phone call is making a difference but remember that it is not just your one call. When organizations like MPHA take action, we are mobilizing many people. It is not just your voice—it is your voice plus someone else’s voice, and another person’s voice, and together that is really powerful. That is how we can influence decision-makers to bring about the change that we want to see. You are taking action with a group of people across the state, and that does make a difference.

If you could offer advice to your younger self while you were in grad school, what would you say?

Walls: One of the best pieces of advice I got when I was in grad school was to focus on building relevant skills. Think about where you want to go in your career, what you want to be doing, and get to know people who are doing that type of work now. Maybe you are really interested in mental health or substance use, maybe you are really interested in sustainable food systems—it is great to have that sort of vision—but really think about where you want to be, what skills you need to get there, and focus on meeting people who can share more about the types of skill sets that you need to be building. Homing in on skills really helped me build my career, so that when the door opened to work at MPHA, I was ready for it, even though the work that I was doing prior to that was not policy advocacy. Skills around coalition building and organizing were things that I was able to build along the way that really helped prepare me for this role.

Roman: I think realizing that you do not have to have everything figured out, and just extending some grace to yourself is huge. Do not hesitate to reach out to folks in organizations that are doing work in areas that you want to work in. And if you do not hear back, do not get discouraged. Reach out again and continue to set up those conversations and those interviews with folks. If there are organizations that are doing great work on policy issues or programs, stay connected with them. Follow them on social or sign up for their email listserv so you can continue to learn more about the issues and the solutions they are working to advance. Look for opportunities to get to know the organization or work with them in a volunteer capacity. You are building rapport with organizations and learning more about the landscape as you try and figure out what you want your next steps to be.