Lola Riggs
Lola
Riggs, Navajo is currently senior manager for the
northern region of Coconino County Health Department,
which is based in Page, Arizona. Riggs oversees the
operation of the health services serving Page and
surrounding areas including the Navajo Reservation,
Fredonia, Colorado City, and the North Rim of the
Grand Canyon. When
the following article was published, Riggs was a
member of the senior staff of the Family Spirit
Project, which was conducted as a partnership between
the Navajo Nation, the White Mountain Apache Tribe and
the Center for American Indian Health at Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
Building a Career in Public Health
Beginning Work in Public Health
Riggs first
worked for Johns Hopkins University from 1987 to 1993 when
she served as a field worker for the Hib study conducted by
Dr. Ray Reid and others.
After one phase of that study was over, Riggs says that
the Johns Hopkins staff urged her to go back to college.
“They encouraged me so much that I packed up my kids, my
husband, and all of my belongings and went to Northern
Arizona University (NAU). I had 3 kids, so I needed a
lot of stamina. I already had some liberal arts courses
under my belt, so it took me about 3 years to complete
the program and get my degree in health promotion.”
“While I was at NAU I worked part-time in the Multicultural
AIDS/HIV Prevention Project. The fact I had worked for
Johns Hopkins helped me get the job. My work with Johns
Hopkins also helped me get a paid internship after college
in a Native American AIDS prevention program at North
Country Community Health Center in Flagstaff. I worked
there for almost a year.”
“When I graduated and was doing my internship, I wrote a
letter to the field director at Johns Hopkins telling her I
had graduated and thanking her for her confidence in me and
for encouraging me to go back to school. She said, ‘We have
a position for you. Would you like to coordinate a family
strengthening program?’ I said, ‘Yes’ and moved back to the
reservation.
Riggs started working for the Family Spirit Project
in 1997.
Some of the curriculum had already been developed. “I
had learned about health promotions programs in college,
so I had an idea in what direction the project should go
and how to lead it. It was a very good job for me. A
perfect fit. I got lots of encouragement and guidance
from the staff of Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.”
Back
to School
Riggs is now
eager to get her MPH. “When you look at the statistics on
Indian Country, you see a lot of health disparities. There
is more disease prevalence than in the rest of the
population. There is a humongous amount of work to be done.
I want to help more. A bachelors degree doesn’t seem like
enough.”
Riggs is studying for her Graduate Record Exams, but
meanwhile she has been taking some of Johns Hopkins’
internet-based courses. She will also attend the Hopkins
Winter Institute and the Summer Institute. Students can
take up to 16 hours of these courses before being accepted
into the graduate program in public health. “If I’m
admitted to Hopkins, these courses will count toward my
MPH,” says Riggs.
If she was based on the Baltimore campus, Riggs could get
her MPH in one year. It takes 3 years to get an MPH via the
Internet. Riggs cautions that distance-learning program
isn’t for everyone. “To do the Internet courses, you have
to be disciplined and self-directed,” she says. “ The
lessons are live. You can actually listen to the professor
and type in questions. It’s really cool.”
There are some advantages for students, like Riggs, “I can
keep my job and continue supporting the family. I can stay
on the reservation and get a degree through Johns Hopkins.
Isn’t that great!”
Long-term
dreams
“My first long
term dream is to get an MPH. I want to help the Navajo
Nation improve the quality of life of our people. We need
to emphasize prevention. The lack of emphasis on prevention
has cost us a lot in the way people live and in the dollars
it costs when problems develop that could have been
prevented. Heads of departments need to be able to write
grants to supplement what the Navajo tribes gives them.
Programs should be built on scientific evidence. We should
use models that have been shown to be effective and have a
positive impact.”
Advice
“If you want to
consider a career in public health, do community volunteer
work,” Riggs suggests. “It shows you care for people. Also,
it gives you a chance to see if you like the work. And if
you have experience, such as in health education, it will
be easier for you to understand the concepts when you study
them in a class.”
The
article above was originally published in the Summer 2003
issue of
Winds of Change. (The cover
artist is Tina Santiago, Coushatta.)
Update
In 2004, Lola
Riggs left her work with Johns Hopkins and became senior
manager for the northern region of Coconino County Health
Department based in Page, Arizona. As a senior manager, she
oversees the operation of the health services for Page and
the surrounding areas, including the Navajo reservation,
Fredonia, Colorado City, and the North Rim of the Grand
Canyon. The services that Riggs oversees include programs
in tobacco prevention, healthy families, care seat safety
and food and water inspection. When she worked for Hopkins,
Riggs didn’t have to pay for her MPH classes. She no longer
has that benefit so she has had to put her dream of
completing her MPH on hold. Meantime, she is learning a
great deal on the job.