Camara Phyllis Jones received the 2023 Elizabeth Fries Health Education Award from the CDC Foundation and the James F. and Sarah T. Fries Foundation. The Elizabeth Fries Health Education Award, first presented in 1992, recognizes a health educator who has made a substantial contribution to advancing the field of health education or health promotion through research, program development, or program delivery.
Dr. Jones was honored for her exceptional ability to educate about pathways linking racism to poor health outcomes and to advocate powerfully and creatively to promote transformative solutions. The award was presented to Dr. Jones at the annual meeting of the Society for Public Health Education
Dr. Jones is a Leverhulme visiting professor in Global Health and Social Medicine at King’s College London, an adjunct professor at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta, and a senior fellow and adjunct associate professor at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. Dr. Jones had a 14-year career as a medical officer and research director at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Over her long career, Dr. Jones was presidential chair and visiting professor at the University of California, San Francisco; presidential visiting fellow and visiting associate professor at the Yale School of Medicine; Evelyn Green Davis fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University; and assistant professor at the Harvard School of Public Health. She is a past president of the American Public Health Association.
Dr. Jones is a graduate of Wellesley College in Massachusetts, where she majored in molecular biology. She earned her medical degree at Stanford University. Dr. Jones also holds a master of public health degree and a Ph.D. in epidemiology from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.