Luce Scholar – Britt Ehrhardt
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Britt Ehrhardt, of Kenai, Alaska, graduated from Stanford in 2004 with a B.A. in Psychology, with honors in Education. She was nominated for the Luce through her current University, Johns Hopkins, where he is working towards an M.A. in Public Health. Ehrhardt will head to Asia in August, one of 18 selected to live and work abroad there as part of a program to increase awareness of Asia among future leaders.
Ehrhardt hopes to intern with a professional association of health workers, perhaps a nurses’ association. “My work in rural Africa has made it clear to me that the world faces extreme shortages and maldistributions of its health workforce,” she explains. “Too few are trained, and most choose urban areas over rural and rich countries over poor. All over the world, I see communities struggling to fill the gap left by health worker shortages. More is needed: not just salary increases, but a response that uses social and behavioral science to change work environments and incentives.” Ehrhardt has been particularly interested by Asian innovations in this area, including a Thai workplace safety program and a Filipino program that explicitly trains nurses for export.
In 2008, she served as a Technical Advisor for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Office of HIV/AIDS, travelling to Namibia to advise a network of HIV counseling and testing centers. From 2004 to 2007, she worked for the Firelight Foundation, which supports community organizations addressing health issues in southern and eastern Africa. As a Grants Analyst, she travelled widely for the Foundation, evaluating grantees and assisting with monitoring and evaluation training.
Ehrhardt’s volunteer work includes refugee services, helping recently arrived Bhutanese families in Baltimore learn to navigate their new environment. She’s also worked extensively in intravenous drug abuse treatment, including community-based qualitative research in Baltimore and needle exchange in California. In 2002, she spent four months in Migori, Kenya, doing HIV prevention community advocacy and AIDS care.
