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About the publication and its author
Publication: Wauneka Health will cover emerging public health topics in the US and globally, aiming to resist Trump’s anti-science agenda and provide credible health information during the current “information blackout” caused by government and academic funding cuts. The newsletter is named to honor Annie Dodge Wauneka, “The Legendary Mother of Navajo Nation,” an influential leader of Navajo Nation on the Navajo Nation Council. Wauneka grew up during the 1918 Spanish Flu and saw how it ravished her community. In particular, she observed how the language barrier between her fellow Navajo and United States public health workers lead to cases being overlooked. After this pandemic, she dedicated her life to improving her Nation’s public health outcomes, becoming the three-term head of the council’s Health and Welfare Committee and working tirelessly to improve her Nation’s health education. She is known for her focus on eradicating tuberculosis in her Nation — vowing to not repeat the failures of the Spanish Flu during the early 1950s tuberculosis epidemic in Navajo Nation, Wauneka authored a Navajo (Diné bizaad) dictionary for English medical terms. This dictionary contributed to a 35% drop in tuberculosis infections by 1970. In 1963, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Lyndon B. Johnson, as well as the Indian Council Fire Achievement Award and the Navajo Medal of Honor. She holds an honorary doctorate in public health from University of New Mexico and was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Miranda chose to honor Wauneka not only for her impressive achievements in public health, but because of Miranda’s personal connection to the Navajo people after having the honor of serving with them as an assistant tribal liaison during the COVID-19 pandemic. More on Wauneka here.
Author: Miranda Mitchell, MPH (“Roo McGuire”) is an environmental health scientist. Opinions are her own and do not represent the institutions she was previously affiliated with. She is a graduate of Emory University and Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health, as well as former intern at the Office of Children’s Health at US EPA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., graduate work-study at US CDC Headquarters at its Roybal Campus in the National Center for Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (NCEZID), Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) fellow and full-time employee at US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) at US CDC’s Chamblee Campus. Her Master’s thesis, published in Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID), investigated the potential transmission dynamics and genetic diversity of a bacteria in bats and their ectoparasites. Her areas of expertise are health risk assessment, environmental health science, molecular biology, and infectious disease epidemiology. She currently makes public health and political educational content here and on Twitch.tv/roomcguire, while she awaits her first child and hopes to pursue a doctorate sometime after 2028. She has never received any money from pharmaceutical companies and declares no conflicts of interest.
