Meet Julie

Julie St. John is an Associate Professor with the Julia Jones Matthews School of Population and Public Health, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Abilene. Originally from San Benito, TX, she now lives in Andon, TX. She has her doctorate in public health from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health. She is also currently a doctoral candidate in the Texas Tech University PhD Program in Education Leadership Policy. She is a Texas certified Community Health Worker (CHW) Instructor, served on the Texas CHW Advisory Committee for 10 years, a member of the APHA CHW Section Council, and has worked with CHWs for over 20 years. She’s also a current member of the Texas DSHS Public Health Funding and Policy Committee. Her research interests include: health status and quality of life improvement among diverse and rural populations through community health development and partnership approaches; scope of practice and training of CHWs; addressing human trafficking through community capacity building; equipping future public health professionals through teaching, service, research, and practice; global health practice and research; social justice/human trafficking research and prevention efforts; and community health development through strategic and operational planning. Her scope of work includes: teaching; research; grant-writing; health status assessments; strategic and operational planning; continuums of care; program evaluation; community partnerships facilitation; CHW training; and program development. Dr. St. John has served as the principal and co-investigator on numerous projects in rural and underserved areas that utilized community-based participatory research approaches. Dr. St. John completed a fellowship with the National Rural Health Association (NRHA) “Rural Health Fellows Program” and a Rural Scholar fellowship with The F. Marie Hall Institute for Rural and Community Health, TTUHSC. Along with co-editors Wandy Hernandez-Gordon and Susan Mayfield Johnson, in April 2021, she published a textbook with 20 teams comprised of 140 authors titled, “Promoting the Health of the Community – Community Health Workers Describing their Roles, Competencies, and Practice.” She also teaches several undergraduate and graduate courses.