The Speakers

Camara P. Jones, MD, MPH, PhD

Camara Phyllis Jones, MD, MPH, PhD is a Senior Fellow in the Satcher Health Leadership Institute and the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia. She currently serves as the President of the American Public Health Association (2015-2016). Her work focuses on naming, measuring, and addressing the impacts of racism on the health and well-being of our nation.

Before coming full-time to Morehouse, Dr. Jones was an Assistant Professor at the Harvard School of Public Health (1994-2000). Research Director on Social Determinants of Health and Equity in the Division of Adult and Community Health (2000-2010) and a Medical Officer in the Epidemiology and Analysis Program Office (2010-2014) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She was awarded the 2011 John Snow Award by the Epidemiology Section of the American Public Health Association, and she is a Fellow of the American College of Epidemiology.

Her work seeks to broaden the national health debate to include not only universal access to high quality health care, but also to bring attention to the social determinants of health (including poverty) and the social determinants of equity (including racism). These are some of the issues that shape the major characteristic of gun violence, and effective solutions must address these determinants.

Rex D. Archer, MD, MPH

Dr. Rex Archer serves as Director of Health for the City of Kansas City, Missouri. In addition to serving on the Public Health Accreditation Board of Directors, he is a past president of the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). Dr. Archer has served on numerous national committees involved with public health. He is responsible for safeguarding the public health of nearly half a million residents and a daytime population of almost one million people. He is recognized as a Public Health Leadership Institute Scholar by UCLA/CDC.

Under Dr. Archer’s leadership, the Kansas City, Missouri, Health Department became one of the first health departments in the United States to achieve national accreditation. Additionally during Dr. Archer’s tenure as Director, Kansas City Health department has won the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Culture of Health Prize, the NACCHO 2016 Local Health Department of the Year Award and received a Model Practice designation from NACCHO for a violence prevention program, among other national awards.

He is a well-known speaker on the issue of Gun Violence. Dr. Archer speaks of addressing violence from lessons learned from how we interrupt contagious diseases, understanding that violence is learned behavior that spreads from person-to-person.