A Charlotte woman recently received The Order of the Long Leaf Pine, a prestigious award given by the North Carolina governor, Roy Cooper, for the extraordinary service individuals have done for the state.
Angela Lee received the award in early May for her work in public health across the state. Lee worked in the sector for more than 30 years.
Oprah Winfrey and Tennessee Williams, an American playwright and screenwriter, have been past recipients of The Order of the Long Leaf Pine.
“Her 30 years have helped improve the health of two communities, impacting the overall well-being of the state,” Gibbie Harris, a visiting assistant clinical professor at Northeastern University, said in a statement to Mecklenburg County.
Lee served as health director in Onslow County and Jones County — where she helped lead Onslow County through Hurricane Florence in 2019.
She was also named Woman of the Year by the Jacksonville Onslow Chamber of Congress in 2015.
In 2019, Lee became Mecklenburg County Public Health’s assistant health director for preventive health, where she led the school health, communicable disease, HIV/STI and environmental health divisions.
As a member of the Mecklenburg County Public Health executive team, Lee also assisted in facing COVID-19 during the pandemic.
“She is a champion for public health preparedness and response and has worked throughout her career to advance health equity in both rural and urban communities,“ Dena Diorio, the Mecklenburg County manager, said during a May commissioner meeting.
QCity Metro sat down with Lee to discuss health equity, COVID-19, the leading health concerns in Mecklenburg County and more.
Answers are edited for clarity and brevity.
What was the biggest lesson you learned in your career?
The most important thing is to keep the people in the communities that you’re working for at the forefront of your mind.
Don’t get caught up in politics. Focus on the needs of the communities that you’re working in and how best to meet those needs and facilitate resources.
How did health equity play a role in your work?
I started in public health, working with families —100 families or more a month. It was very easy to understand the needs of the community. That’s really what made me want to move forward and become a health director because I wanted to not just help families but also be able to think strategically about how to implement programs and lead programs that would provide the support that people need.
I’m a Black female, and I understand that there are many disadvantaged, underserved communities in our state. So, when we think about health effects, we want all people to have access to health care—good health—and that comes from providing education, resources and ensuring that you get buy-in from your communities.
You also do it by ensuring that the programs that you provide in your department or community are those that are needed for people in your community. It doesn’t do me any good to have a program if it’s not meeting the needs [of a community.]
What are you most proud of from your work?
That’s a hard one. There are so many things that I’m proud of, from working with parents who’ve lost children to teaching parenting classes.
Being the mother of twins, and now I have four children — two stepchildren — that was so important because when you help people understand the importance of [parenting], it really can impact the lives of children and youth.
Helping lead our COVID response in Mecklenburg is probably one of the things I’m most proud of because I never envisioned that during my career, I would be involved in something like the COVID-19 epidemic. That stretched our entire nation, and it allowed us to step up and lead in a way that not only led our community but also helped to lead the state.
What was it like working through the pandemic?
Everything happened so quickly, and every community is different. Not all communities had the same resources. I was very blessed to be in Mecklenburg County because not only were they able to provide resources to us but they had leadership during the response that was tremendous.
County leaders allowed public health to provide information and knowledge that led to our response efforts for the communities. We were able to collaborate with the state, provide feedback and help other communities.
It was a very stressful time. We worked tirelessly, seven days a week. It took everyone stepping into roles that they weren’t familiar with, but [with the] understanding we wanted to keep the number of people who had COVID down, as well as reduce the number of deaths that we saw in our community.
COVID-19 disproportionately impacted the Black community. How did the Mecklenburg County Health Department try to address those health disparities during the pandemic?
Just being intentional.
[The Mecklenburg County Health Department is] not unfamiliar with navigating, messaging and providing information in ways that those most affected can take [and] process. That’s what we did with COVID.
Whatever populations we saw increasing, we made sure to provide education. We included our church communities because we understand that, typically, in the Black community, [the church] is where they get information.
We had created COVID ambassadors who worked with businesses so that we could try to help keep people safe. [The Mecklenburg County Health Department] also provided education as well.
How can Mecklenburg County address mental health as a public health issue?
We have to be respectful of mental health concerns. People don’t want to share [their mental health concerns] because of the stigma that’s attached to it. So we’ve got to be open. We’ve got to identify and offer resources for people that are quality resources — not just medicine.
What kind of health issues are Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools students dealing with?
COVID-19 affected our young children tremendously.
One focus [was] making sure that kids are up to date on their vaccinations — because the school community is so large — and immunizations are so important to protecting the health of the public.
What were some of the leading health trends in Charlotte Mecklenburg over the past five years?
[My] first two [years] were COVID-19.
We were also one of the communities that had a large number of m-pox cases. Our response efforts to that were effective and helped curtail the number of people who were identified as having m-pox.
What keeps you up at night in terms of public health?
Health disparities between races are one. We’ve got to commit to addressing those and not just say that but put money behind it—as a nation.
Mental health is what keeps me up because it makes its way into everything. Mental health is a concern because we recognize that [they] are growing. I don’t think we are keeping up with how to address those appropriately, and we do a disservice to those who have mental health concerns.
What is the best advice you’ve gotten in your career?
Meet people where they are — that goes for leadership [and] when you have employees. You help them grow, develop and evaluate what challenges they have, and work with them.
You do the same with patients or customers so that you’re able to identify kind of what’s going on, and then evaluate how best to assist them [and] support them. That applies to your staff, your colleagues [and] all of [the people that you] meet e because everybody comes from different perspectives.
You’ve had a long and fruitful career in public health. Do you have any parting advice for recent graduates entering the workforce?
I hope that they will not pigeonhole themselves but dig into public health and see what aspects interest them because public health encompasses so many things. There are so many ways to make a difference in this field, and I hope people will be open to that.
Working in public health at the health department is one [way], but there are so many roles and opportunities [we need] as a nation. We truly need people to be invested in moving our public health efforts forward.
