by Bea Peterson
Hoosick Falls resident Margaret Casey, a long time public health advocate who started her career as a nurse with the Rensselaer County Health Department, was recognized with the National Forum for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention’s 2014 Commitment award at the National Forum’s annual meeting in Washington, DC.
[private]The award is presented annually to an individual and group in the field of public health whose work embodies the recommendations of the Public Health Action Plan to Prevent Heart Disease and Stroke.
“Margaret Casey has provided leadership and expertise in chronic disease prevention for more than 25 years,” said Sharon Moffatt, Chair of the National Forum’s Board of Directors. “She has been a committed member of the National Forum where she served on the Board of Directors and has remained a committed member of our annual meeting planning committee.”
Casey said, “I was completely surprised and delighted to receive the award.”
Casey has always thought “big.” In 1987, while working for the County, she founded the Rural Rensselaer County Council for Health and Human Services. “In eastern Rensselaer County, at that time, we were ignored,” she said. At its peak the Council had 65 agencies that interacted to provide services to this rural area.
For the past ten years Casey has worked for the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors dealing with State Health Departments to help them do a better job dealing with chronic diseases. It required a great deal of cross country travel. However, when she wasn’t traveling, she worked from home.
In mid-December Casey will make a career change. She will be working for the NYS Health Department as a Public Health Nurse. “With the new Medicaid requirements,” she said, “there is a big push by the State to provide better health care delivery.” The goal is to keep people well, and as an administrator she will be working with a variety of health care providers, hospitals, physicians, clinics, etc. to achieve that goal. The big change, said Casey, will be working from an office in Albany daily as opposed to working at home. The job will still require some travel but only in her home state.
Casey, a former Hoosick Falls Deputy Mayor, and her husband Dennis are both very civic minded and supportive of their community. They have two adult children, Eileen and Kevin.
Casey will no longer serve on the National Forum from which she received her award. The National Forum for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention is an “organization of organizations” with more than 80 organizational and individual members with interest in heart disease and stroke prevention. Started in 2003 its recent Ten Year Update provides a framework for individuals, organizations and agencies to collaboratively achieve national goals for preventing heart disease and stroke. With contributions from more than 100 public health leaders, the Ten Year Update calls for striking a better balance in the nation’s financial investment in health by prioritizing prevention, transforming our public health agencies into champions of heart health policy and environmental changes and developing upstream strategies that prevent the root causes of heart disease and stroke.[/private]