Former Planned Parenthood vice president of education and Mailman School of Public Health faculty member advocates for underserved, marginalized populations

Leslie Kantor
Leslie Kantor is known as a leader in sexual and reproductive health and an advocate for underserved and marginalized populations.
Photo by Nick Romanenko / Rutgers University

The Rutgers School of Public Health has selected Leslie Kantor as the inaugural chair of its Department of Urban-Global Public Health.

In her previous role as vice president of education for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Kantor was a leader in sexual and reproductive health and an advocate for underserved and marginalized populations.

“One of the most important aspects of public health is its approach to solving problems, which is to engage sincerely with communities to learn about challenges, priorities and solutions,” Kantor said. “The key is partnering to understand problems and to work with individuals to develop solutions.” 

Over three decades in sex education and sexual and reproductive health, Kantor developed one of the first evidence-based approaches to contraceptive counseling, now being used nationwide. At Planned Parenthood, she convened a national digital advisory board and conducted formative research with 350 African-American and Latino teens and parents, which guided the development of digital education tools for middle and high school students to reduce unintended pregnancy. The tools have been used by more than 600,000 young people. At Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, Kantor worked on global initiatives to reduce maternal mortality and increase access to reproductive health in emergency settings and taught courses on management, program planning and pedagogy of sex education. 

The Urban-Global Public Health program will launch this fall at the School of Public Health in Newark.

What disparities do you see in health care in New Jersey?
As a resident of New Jersey for more than 20 years, I’ve been concerned about the large disparities between our suburban and urban areas. Many of the urban areas experience low median incomes and high rates of poverty, while the suburban areas tend to be the wealthiest. On almost any health indicator, the negative outcomes are significantly more prevalent in our state’s urban areas. For example, take infant mortality: Rates in Camden County are more than 2.5 times that in Morris County. Our state can and must do more to ensure that a zip code doesn’t determine a person’s level of opportunity or health status.

How important is community activism to urban health?
Real change rarely happens without advocacy. In order to increase health equity and reduce disparities, there is going to need to be advocacy to both maintain the health policy gains that have been made over the last decade, such as the Affordable Care Act, and to move forward in providing better prevention and care to communities that are underserved. There is almost no health issue on which there aren’t significant and persistent racial, ethnic and economic inequities. Helping students use the tools they learn in school to articulate what needs more attention and to access resources is essential to improving public health and ensuring those gains are equitable. 

Describe how you will approach working with community members in this program.
I’ve always tried to build in resources for strong formative research with the communities I’m trying to reach. Community residents can have different conversations than those of us with academic credentials. In some cases, you have to abandon ideas you think are helpful because the community doesn’t agree or finds them unappealing or unacceptable. In my new role, I will engage community members to conduct research, which can be a powerful tool for unearthing issues and strengths. Having students from the communities in New Jersey on which we are focused also will help us to conduct effective community-based research. 

What excites you about this new chapter in your career?
I’ve dedicated my career to public health because it is a pathway to social and economic justice.  I’m looking forward to working with and mentoring the diverse group of students who attend Rutgers and using my teaching and work on academic programs to further my commitment to resolving inequity.

I plan to continue my mission of helping funders see the importance of addressing key public health issues, which will expand the resources available for research, programs and services. With the help of faculty, we will identify gaps in research and service and bring attention and energy to what needs to be addressed.

Technology will be key in educating this next generation of health leaders, conducting research and providing education and services to the community. As the program progresses, we’ll be developing many new distance learning/online courses.

It’s also exciting that our department will be focusing on research, education and service in urban contexts around the world. For example, we have just expanded our work through partnerships with schools in Athens, Greece, and Dodoma, Tanzania, which will put our work here in a global context.