Autumn Tangney’s family’s experiences with healthcare systems shaped her future education and career journey
Tangney, a Master of Science in Public Health student at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in the Department of International Health’s Health Systems Program, was raised by a single mother and her grandmother in Fairhaven, Massachusetts.
“I’m very motivated by not coming from much and wanting so much more,” she said.
During Tangney’s youth, her mother put herself through nursing school and often expressed aggravation with overcrowding and administrative inefficiencies in the healthcare system. Her father’s experiences with health services were frustrating; he was chronically ill and struggled with mental health and substance abuse.
“He always feared the health system,” Tangney recalled. “He wasn’t educated about it and saw it as inaccessible and unaffordable.”
At Providence College, Tangney majored in political science and immersed herself in extracurricular and volunteer opportunities. At the school, she started an Education Collaboration Committee, doing advocacy work with LGBTQ+ coalitions and a safety and security task force.
In her sophomore year, when Tangney was interning virtually with the Ministry of Health in Kenya, she learned that her father had passed away from COVID-19 and compounding health effects from tuberculosis and cirrhosis of the liver.
“I thought a lot about how his socioeconomic status impacted him, his poverty and his lack of education, and his fear around healthcare, mental health, and physical health,” she said. “It hindered him from the life that he could have had — the life that he deserved.”
His passing motivated Tangney to pursue a career that directly promoted health equity at the patient level. She picked up a second major in health policy and management, and entered the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health after graduating in 2023.
Making a difference through public health
The Bloomberg School, with its global reputation and distinction as the No. 1 school of public health in the country, appealed to her. She was particularly impressed by its extensive alumni network of more than 28,000 strong and the professional connections it presented.
“Everyone around me was so motivated,” Tangney said. “I just felt instantly inspired when I stepped on campus.”
Tangney moved to Laurel, Maryland, to attend the Bloomberg School, and it wasn’t long before she was working in the Baltimore community. She worked as an outreach assistant with the HEAL Refugee Health & Asylum Collaborative through the Department of Pediatrics in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and was a research assistant on a harm reduction and HIV risk factor study in connection with the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health, Behavior and Society.
In the process, she fell in love with the Baltimore area — from the food to the diversity, to the opportunities.
Now in the second year of her MSPH program, with an expected graduation in May 2025, Tangney is also pursuing certificates in leadership for public health and healthcare, and humanitarian health.
“I’ve definitely had a lot of opportunities to be involved in the community, and have taken all that Hopkins has to offer professionally and really thrived,” she said.
Striving for better global health
Tangney was awarded a Global Health Established Field Placement grant through the Gupta Klinsky India Institute at Hopkins, which allowed her to travel to India last summer to work with a program that served adolescents living with perinatally acquired HIV.
While in India, she worked with the RISHI Foundation to develop training modules for support groups in four areas: health, education, gender, and well-being.
Tangney continues to work with the School’s International Vaccine Access Center at the RISHI Foundation based in Bangalore, India.
Tangney has moved to the greater Boston area and remains committed to promoting health equity after graduating.
“Bloomberg is a place where whatever you put in, you can take out,” Tangney said. “And I feel like I have taken so much.”
To learn more, visit publichealth.jhu.edu/get-a-masters
When Innocent Grant, an MSPH student in the Department of Health, Behavior, and Society, was 20, he watched a young woman die from an unsafe abortion.
Grant, who lived in Tanzania, was one of the youngest students in his class to begin clinical medical studies within a hospital. During his training, Grant was placed in a gynecology ward where he met the young woman: a bright college student who presented with severe abdominal pain and abnormal discharge.
As Grant took her history, he learned that the woman had come to the hospital after seeking a “street abortion.” In Tanzania, abortion is illegal, leaving women to seek care from unlicensed providers.
When the young woman began to fall ill 48 hours later, she returned to the person who conducted the abortion. That provider conducted the abortion twice more. The third time, he perforated her uterus. By the time she arrived at the hospital — a week after her initial procedure — the damage and infection from unsterile equipment had set in. She passed away a few days later.
“She died lonely, without any support, because of the fear and stigma around sexual relationships among adolescents and young adults,” Grant said. “That still sticks in my mind.”
Her case was one of many unsafe abortions that Grant saw in his time at the gynecology ward — and the long-term effects of limited abortion access stuck with him.
Since his first year in college, Grant had worked with a sexual health club at his college. But after his experiences in the gynecological ward, he used his knowledge to further promote conversations.
Grant traveled to primary and secondary school and sub-urban communities around Mtwara, Mikindani municipal and rural communities around Lindi Region and Masasi district. There, he worked to dispel myths and answer questions about sexual health.
“I felt like I was directly helping and preventing what I was seeing in the hospitals by educating young people and communities on the southern coast of Tanzania,” Grant said.
Grant applied via video essay to attend the 2018 International Conference of Family Planning in Rwanda and was accepted to present on the importance of contraceptive education in Mtwara in Tanzania. He also attended the 2019 Women Deliver Conference in Canada and the 2020 Social and Behavioral Change Communication Summit for Youth Champions in Morocco.
“I interacted with a lot of people from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,” Grant said. “It has an impact that is seen and felt globally.”
Inspired by the people he met, Grant applied to the Master of Science in Public Health program in 2024. He was accepted to the Department of Health, Behavior, and Society, with a concentration in health education and communication, and began his studies in August 2024.
Grant now works as a student research assistant with the School’s William H. Gates Sr. Institute for Population and Reproductive Health to continue promoting sexual education. He is expanding on his work in Tanzania by helping develop a framework of sexual well-being and gender equity alongside partner organizations, such as the Pleasure Project.
Grant is also involved with planning the 2025 International Conference of Family Planning in Colombia to promote diverse young leaders globally.
“The School provides a lot of opportunities,” Grant said. “There is no doubt that it is the number one school of public health.”
After earning his MSPH, Grant plans to pursue a PhD at the School. He hopes to work within the NGO sector in the family planning field and push for sexual health programs in the Global South.
“Public health is complex, and in approaching public health problems, we need a lot of collaborations,” Grant said. “So, let’s go out and listen more.”
To learn more, visit publichealth.jhu.edu/get-a-masters
When Kidist Dugassa was in medical school at Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, her laptop background was a picture of a sprawling building with multicolored banners swaying over the entrance. Each time she opened her computer, she was greeted by the iconic Wolfe Street Building, home of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Even 10 years before she set foot on campus, she knew that the Bloomberg School was where she wanted to be.
“If I want something, I will get it,” said Dugassa, now an MSPH student in the Department of International Health. “I will work and achieve it. It’s my principle in life.”
Dugassa, who was born and raised in Ethiopia, grew up with her mother’s mantra that girls can accomplish as much as boys, if not more. Dugassa pushed herself to excel in education, with a dogged persistence that followed her all the way to medical school. Dugassa was ready to be a doctor.
But when she began her internship rotations in different hospitals, Dugassa noticed a pattern. Patients with different metabolic diseases such as kidney failure, liver failure, and hypertension would be prescribed medication, but they often knew little about the importance of diet and exercise, which contributes to increased rates of disease.
“I wanted to be part of the solution,” Dugassa said. “Nutrition is an integral part of treatment. We need to treat the root cause, not just the symptoms.”
Dugassa focused on the importance of data-driven solutions for integrating nutrition into public health systems. But while she was still in medical school, the COVID-19 pandemic began.
Dugassa began using her interests in data for public health outreach, health data analysis, and misinformation prevention. During that time, she was interviewed on TV, spoke to public health experts, and advocated for treatment.
One of her main sources of COVID-19 information: the Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dugassa would spend hours following the news and research coming out of the School and disseminating it in Ethiopia.
Once COVID-19 cases finally began to lull in 2022, Dugassa — with her laptop background still set to the Wolfe St. Building — submitted her application to the Master of Science in Public Health program in International Health with a concentration in human nutrition.
“I will never give up,” Dugassa said. “I’m here at Johns Hopkins because I worked for it.”
Dugassa moved from Ethiopia to Baltimore before the start of her program in August 2023. Since her arrival, she has worked as a Research Assistant at DataDENT to analyze national nutrition strategies and public health policies in LMICs. She also works with the Baltimore Urban Distribution App, which aims to connect store owners in low-income areas with healthy food suppliers.
She also leads a Family Health Table at the Northeast Market Initiative to educate communities about genetic and non-genetic health concerns. She orients volunteers and community members to help increase health literacy, promote preventive healthcare measures, and empower individuals.
Dugassa graduated in December 2024. Moving forward, she sees herself working as a health policy advisor or community health leader to reduce health disparities and promote disease prevention strategies.
“Nothing is impossible,” Dugassa said. “The only thing that you need is the mindset and the determination that you can make it.”
To learn more, visit publichealth.jhu.edu/get-a-masters
