In late 2024, Ms. Blackwell was listed on the CDC’s website as a “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility, and Belonging Officer.”
The Job Description states:
Ms. Blackwell is the diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, and belonging (DEIAB) officer in the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDOHO). She oversees the center’s efforts to develop and support an empowered and high-performing workforce that thrives in a culture of mutual acceptance and trust, where every employee recognizes and embraces our differences and experiences satisfaction, inclusion, and belonging. Ms. Blackwell also serves as the co-chair of the NCCDPHP’s DEIAB Council.
Ms. Blackwell previously served as a public health advisor in the Program Development and Services Branch of NCCDPHP’s Division of Adolescent and School Health (DASH) and oversaw DASH’s DEIAB/HealthEquity Workgroup. From 2012 to2023, while serving in the School Health Branch of the Division of Population Health (DPH). Ms. Blackwell developed and led DPH’s DEIAB/Health Equity Workgroup. She also represented DPH in the center’s Tribal Coordination Workgroup and was a liaison to the Healthy Tribes Unity and the American Indian/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian Coalition.
Before joining CDC, Ms. Blackwell was a public health program manager for the Health Assessment and Promotion Division of the DeKalb County Board of Health, where she developed and managed the division’s Office of Chronic Disease Prevention unit. From those early days of her career, she managed federal, state, and corporate funded public health programs that focused on healthy equity and chronic disease prevention.
As of January 24, Ms. Blackwell’s biography no longer appears on the CDC’s website.
While Ms. Blackwell’s biography may have been removed from the agency’s website, she remains employed by them. Clearly her views are out of alignment with the current administration.
A 2023 Tweet by the CDC reveals Ms. Blackwell’s participation in a discussion on so called “health equity.”
How can after school programs bridge gaps in health equity?!? CDC DASH colleagues…Jyotsna Blackwell…discuss.
While Ms. Blackwell’s participation in this sort of effort is problematic in any context, for her to do so in the context of an afterschool program has chilling implications for parental rights.
