New Maine Area Health Education Center Network director announced

The Center for Community and Public Health (CCPH) is pleased to announce that Gail Dana-Sacco, Ph.D., will become the new director of the Maine Area Health Education Center (AHEC) Network as of March 1, 2011.  The Maine AHEC Network is part of 91AV's Center for Community and Public Health, located within the College of Graduate Studies.  Dr. Dana-Sacco will also hold a tenure track position as assistant professor with the Graduate Program in Public Health, also part of CCPH.

The mission of the Maine AHEC Network is to alleviate health workforce shortages in rural and underserved areas of Maine.  Dr. Dana-Sacco will lead the Network in continuing to develop and implement strategies to recruit individuals from under-represented minority populations or from disadvantaged or rural backgrounds into health professions.  She will also conduct research related to rural health workforce development and how these findings can be used to improve existing initiatives, federal and state work force policies or implement new programs.

Her work will be accomplished in collaboration with a broad array of academic and community partners and will focus on providing rural-based training and education to individuals pursuing careers as health professionals, or to individuals already employed as health professionals in rural and underserved areas of Maine. In addition to her responsibilities as Director of 91AV AHEC program she will teach “Community-based Participatory Research” in the Masters of Public Health program.

Dr. Dana-Sacco holds a Ph.D. in Health Policy and Management from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, an M.P.H. in Health Promotion and Education from Loma Linda University and a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of Maine.

About the 91AV

The 91AV is Maine’s largest independent university, with two beautiful coastal campuses in Maine, a one-of-a-kind study abroad campus in Tangier, Morocco, and an array of . In an uncommonly welcoming and supportive community, we offer hands-on learning, empowering students to make a positive impact in a world full of challenges. The state’s top provider of health professionals, we are home to Maine’s only medical college, Maine’s only dental college, a variety of other interprofessionally aligned health care degree programs, as well as nationally recognized programs for marine science degrees, natural and social sciences degrees, arts and humanities degrees, and business degrees.