Public Health Approaches to Eliminating Financial Harm | FUSE

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Medical debt affects 100 million Americans and contributes to personal financial strain and poor health outcomes, while overuse of healthcare services leads to wasteful spending and harm to patients. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is adopting a public health approach to address these issues and is partnering with FUSE to create a consortium of experts to understand the environment of healthcare financial harms in Los Angeles County. FUSE Executive Fellow Sameena Mustafa will map out the data and stakeholder landscape and cultivate partnerships to collect and analyze data to reduce financial harm.

Sameena will conduct a landscape analysis, map stakeholders, and develop a consortium of partners to adopt a public health approach to measuring and monitoring financial harm. The consortium will include community partners, academic researchers, and state and local government public health officials. Sameena will coordinate the development of contracts or grants needed to finance consortium partners’ participation.

SAMEENA MUSTAFA has spent years advocating for the marginalized as a trusted advisor to nonprofit and business leaders and a critically-acclaimed performer and broadcaster. Following her run for Congress, she launched Silver Lake Advisors, where she most recently led research on violence against AAPI women in politics with the Rutgers Center on American Women and Politics. Originally from Chicago, she graduated from Northwestern University where she studied Philosophy and Poetry.

Spring 2023 FUSE Executive Fellow Sameena Mustafa

Sameena Mustafa

Los Angeles County Department of Public Health

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