PHEC 464: Winning the War on HIV, With Marco Benjamin

Meghan Jernigan spent her childhood in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma driving over an hour just to reach the nearest Indian Health Service hospital. That drive shaped everything that came after. Dr. Huntley talks with Meghan, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation, about the unlikely path from a theater degree at Oklahoma State to two decades of work in tribal epidemiology, research, and now federal relations for the Washington State Department of Health. They dig into why storytelling and relationship building matter as much as data when you're translating federal rulemaking into something communities can actually use. At the center of the conversation is a landmark data sharing agreement between Washington State and two federally recognized tribes, one that's reshaping who gets to hold and interpret their own health information. Meghan also talks wildfire season, measles outbreaks, and what it takes to keep a state health department steady while the ground keeps shifting beneath it. This one's about power, trust, and communities finally telling their own story with their own data.   Resources ▶️ Join the PHEC Podcast Community ▶️ Visit the PHEC Podcast Show Notes ▶️ DrCHHuntley, Public Health & Epidemiology Consulting  

Cleveland's smoking rate was double the national average — and it wasn't an accident. Tobacco companies targeted Black neighborhoods, low-income communities, and youth with free menthol cigarettes as smoking dropped everywhere else. Dr. David Margolius spent years watching the fallout as a primary care physician before taking that fight to Cleveland's Department of Public Health. The result: smoking rates cut nearly in half, lead poisoning down by a third. He and Dr. Huntley talk about what it actually takes to move numbers like that — and why public health has to stop working in the shadows.   Resources ▶️ Join the PHEC Podcast Community ▶️ Visit the PHEC Podcast Show Notes ▶️ DrCHHuntley, Public Health & Epidemiology Consulting  

A sidewalk. A nine-hour ER wait. Two very different stories, one question: what does "public health" actually mean? Oluoma Eze and Savaiz Siddiqui join Dr. Huntley to unpack the parts of healthcare nobody explains well — the housing, the waiting rooms, the policy decisions made about us, usually without us. Real stories. No jargon. Just a better way to talk about the system that shapes our lives long before we ever see a doctor.   Resources ▶️ Join the PHEC Podcast Community ▶️ Visit the PHEC Podcast Show Notes ▶️ DrCHHuntley, Public Health & Epidemiology Consulting  

When organizations begin quietly moving away from the words "health equity," what happens to the work itself? Jacquelyn Dalton, MPH, Senior Director of Special Initiatives and Projects at Health Leads, joins Dr. Huntley to talk about why naming the work matters. They explore community-based work, workforce challenges, housing instability, relationship-centered leadership, and what it takes to sustain health equity efforts when the language around them is changing. Resources ▶️ Join the PHEC Podcast Community ▶️ Visit the PHEC Podcast Show Notes ▶️ DrCHHuntley, Public Health & Epidemiology Consulting  

A white powder incident tied to a local election. A measles outbreak unfolding at the same time. For Gabby Hadly, MPH, that was one week on the job, not an outlier. In this episode, Dr. Huntley sits down with Gabby, who leads public health emergency preparedness and response for Snohomish County, Washington, just north of Seattle. Their conversation moves from Gabby's personal path into public health to the daily realities of protecting nearly 860,000 residents from the emergencies no one wants to imagine.   Resources ▶️ Join the PHEC Podcast Community ▶️ Visit the PHEC Podcast Show Notes ▶️ DrCHHuntley, Public Health & Epidemiology Consulting  

Across South Carolina, thousands of uninsured residents are managing chronic conditions and recovering from hospital stays without the safety net most people take for granted. For many, the gap between needing medication and being able to afford it can mean the difference between stability and crisis. In this episode, Dr. Huntley sits down with Kahlia Aposhian and Jessica Gaines of Welvista. They talk about a resource that has been quietly serving this exact gap for years, a free statewide mail-order pharmacy most people have never heard of, even though it might be saving lives in their own community. Resources ▶️ Join the PHEC Podcast Community ▶️ Visit the PHEC Podcast Show Notes ▶️ DrCHHuntley, Public Health & Epidemiology Consulting  

Public health rarely looks the way people expect. It shows up in a hospital pharmacy trying to help a patient afford insulin. It shows up on a highway where a transportation safety lead is tracking who gets left out of the data. It shows up in a Nigerian medical school, where a young physician starts asking bigger questions about mental health policy. In this episode, Dr. Huntley brings together three professionals with three very different lenses for one conversation about a shared mission.       Resources ▶️ Join the PHEC Podcast Community ▶️ Visit the PHEC Podcast Show Notes ▶️ DrCHHuntley, Public Health & Epidemiology Consulting  

South Carolina recently experienced the largest measles outbreak in modern American history, and for Dr. Huntley, who lives and works in the state, this wasn't a distant headline. It was a story unfolding in her own backyard. In this episode, Dr. Huntley sits down with Scott Thorpe, Executive Director of the Southern Alliance for Public Health Leadership, to unpack what actually happened in Spartanburg and what helped bring the outbreak under control. They also talk about why the real work is only beginning now that the crisis has passed. Resources ▶️ Join the PHEC Podcast Community ▶️ Visit the PHEC Podcast Show Notes ▶️ DrCHHuntley, Public Health & Epidemiology Consulting  

What does the national debt have to do with your health? More than most people think. In this episode, Dr. Huntley sits down with Dr. Kasie Whitener, a radio host, business professor, entrepreneur, and the current Libertarian Party nominee for U.S. Senate in South Carolina. Dr. Whitener brings a perspective that is rarely heard in public health spaces, and this conversation is all the better for it. Dr. Whitener is not a career politician. She is a researcher, an educator, and a community builder who sees public health as deeply connected to the fiscal decisions made at the federal level. Her motivation is straightforward: every policy issue, at its core, is a funding issue. Resources ▶️ Join the PHEC Podcast Community ▶️ Visit the PHEC Podcast Show Notes ▶️ DrCHHuntley, Public Health & Epidemiology Consulting  

What does it look like when lived experience becomes a public health career? In this episode of the PHEC Podcast, Dr. Huntley sits down with Marco Benjamin, Director of Public Health at the Joseph H. Neal Health Collaborative in South Carolina, for a conversation that is equal parts inspiring and urgent. Marco has been living with HIV for more than 20 years, and rather than letting that diagnosis define him in a limiting way, he channeled it into decades of advocacy, innovation, and community-centered work. This conversation explores what it actually takes to reach communities that have been overlooked, undereducated, and underserved on issues of sexual health and HIV. Resources ▶️ Join the PHEC Podcast Community ▶️ Visit the PHEC Podcast Show Notes ▶️ DrCHHuntley, Public Health & Epidemiology Consulting