Claudia Calhoon
Claudia M. Calhoon is the Substitute Lecturer in the Department of Urban Studies. She oversees the Cities and Social Medicine minor and teaches the US Health Systems course and the Cities and Social Medicine course. Ms. Calhoon is passionate about making the US health care system more equitable through policy, advocacy, teaching, and research. She is currently writing her dissertation on the impact of the 45th presidential administration on immigrant communities in California and is projected to graduate from the CUNY School of Public Health and Health Policy in May 2022. During 2020 and 2021 she taught US Health Policy and Health Systems at Hunter College, and Principles and History of Public Health History at York College.
As an advocate for a more immigrant-friendly health care system in New York, Ms. Calhoon was part of the 2019 Governor’s working group to promote an equitable distribution of New York State’s Indigent Care Pool. From 2015-2018, she was a co-lead of the Coverage4All campaign, which is working to win health insurance coverage for all New York State residents regardless of immigration status. As a health policy advocate, she helped convene and develop the campaign for the NYC City Council initiative Access Health NYC, which funded community-based organization to do outreach and education on health access and coverage, after the rollout of the Affordable Care Act. Ms. Calhoon also served on the 2015 Mayor’s Taskforce on Immigrant Health Access that made recommendations that ultimately resulted in the creation of the NYC Care program.
She has worked in grantmaking at the Open Society Foundations, as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador, in hospital administration at Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture, and the New York Immigration Coalition. She loves American history, talking with communities about health policy, exploring New York City neighborhoods, and eating hotdogs at Coney Island.
Selected Publications include:
Hadler M, Calhoon C, Chun S, and Lightfoot D. Just and Equitable Behavioral Health for Immigrant New Yorkers: A Policy Agenda. The New York Immigration Coalition, 2019
Email: claudia.calhoon41@sphmail.cuny.edu