The Rhode Island Public Health Association recently announced the appointment of a new leader, Larry Warner, a Cranston resident who will serve as the association’s president for a two-year term.

Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, from parents of Caribbean descent, Warner said they were the ones who instilled in him a great work and study ethic.

He attended Brown University, where he discovered his interest in public health, calling it his “emerging North Star.”

Falling in love with Rhode Island’s scenery, its geographic diversity and culture, Warner decided to stay after completing his undergraduate studies.

Warner spent some time as a Providence firefighter and EMT, which he says contributed to how he sees and understands community. In his new role as president, he works to define the vision and plans of the board and help people understand what public health is.

He believes that after the pandemic, the general community began to have a true appreciation and recognition of the complexities of public health and its impact.

“When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, people realized, ‘Oh, there's a lot of things that are happening behind the background to help keep communities and individuals safe,’” Warner said.

Many may confuse health care with public health, Warner says, explaining that health care is what people turn to for preventive care and for remedies when they’re sick or injured, and public health is everything else that contributes to healthy and safe communities.

Protection of safe drinking water, promotion of access to healthy fruits and vegetables and deployment of resources in an efficient way are some things that fall under the public health umbrella.

“In general, public health and health care are both important to the health and wellbeing of our state and the communities within it,” Warner said. “There's a lot of things that people might not directly associate with public health that contribute to healthy communities, and that's part of our mission as well.”

As for the public health challenges he sees in the communities, he said they range from mental health to child wellbeing to isolation among seniors to overdose prevention and access to food.

For Warner, the work involves not only helping people with access to services and information in a moment of crisis, but also looking at things in a broader context and asking the question: What do we need to do to reduce the risk of poor health outcomes or reduce disparities in health outcomes between either geographies or demographic groups?

RIPHA is a nonprofit agency established in 1996 and is the local affiliate of the American Public Health Association.

The organization gathers public health professionals through activities and studies to increase public health knowledge and health-promoting policies, according to a press release announcing Warner’s new role.

As the president of RIPHA, Warner oversees a membership range for the association of 800+ members, including individual and agency members.

In addition to his new role, Warner has served as the chief impact and equity officer of United Way Rhode Island since 2019.

Currently, RIPHA is in a partnership with the state Department of Health on projects including cancer screening, advocacy training and drafting community health reports.

Two main initiatives out of RIPHA are its Community Health Workers program and Health Equity Zones.

“The key element there is that community health workers reflect the communities that they're working with, and so there's a shared understanding and appreciation of the opportunities and the challenges that might be experienced there,” Warner said. 

Health Equity Zones were an initiative launched in 2015 by the state, Warner said. They identify priority issues for each community and the resources to address them.

Warner looks to position the organization to be nimble and remain relevant to a broader stakeholder base; especially on the heels of new leadership in key federal agencies –both the Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health have seen leadership and other changes.

Now in this current climate of uncertainty and change, Warner says the most important thing as a community is to remember that we are “One Cranston.”

“Some of us are newer immigrants, some of us, our families may have immigrated a couple of generations ago, but unless you are a Native American Indian, we have all found our way to where we are,” Warner said.

For Warner, he hopes that people will see one Cranston, one Rhode Island and one United States, that people will recognize that regardless of your political affiliation or lack of it, “we’re still one United States.”

“Let's look out for each other and be supportive of each other in the ways that people prefer to be supported,” Warner said – “not the ways that we think they should be supported.”