Barbara Leonard, MPH

Senior Program Officer
Maine Health Access Foundation

Barbara Leonard came to Maine Health Access Foundation (MeHAF) in October 2007 as senior program officer, after several years of public health consulting nationally and in Maine. She has nearly 20 years' experience in public health program development, administration, management and evaluation, with special interest in chronic diseases, women’s health and policy approaches to improving health. Most recently, as the president of The Leonard Group, a public health consulting organization, she worked with the Childhood Obesity and Public Health Teams of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to develop new grant programs as well as collaborative efforts among national funders known as the Convergence Partnership. Ms. Leonard also created and piloted a professional development course for the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors and played an integral role in the initial development of a new program of program reviews of state health department chronic disease programs. She recently co-directed an assessment of the demand for a new MPH program for the University of Southern Maine. Ms. Leonard served as the director of the Division of Community Health in the Maine Bureau of Health (now the Division of Chronic Disease in the Maine Center for Disease Control) where she oversaw public health programs ranging from injury control and oral health to cancer control, tobacco use prevention and obesity prevention. She led the creation of and served as the first director of the Maine Breast and Cervical Health Program, which has now provided no-cost cancer screening and diagnostic services to thousands of low-income Maine women. Ms. Leonard also helped to develop and implement the Healthy Maine Partnerships and other public health programs established under the Fund for a Healthy Maine, which allocates Maine's portion of the tobacco Master Settlement Agreement. At the Maine Ambulatory Care Coalition (now Maine Primary Care Association) she helped to create and coordinate the Maine Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers Health Services Council. She served on the board of the Maine Women’s Fund for six years starting in 1994 and was its president from 1998 – 2000. In addition, she has served on a number of state and national-level boards and advisory groups related to a variety of public health issues, including the Maine Public Health Association and the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors.

Ms. Leonard is the recipient of the Maine Public Health Association's Presidents' Award and was named to the Yale School of Medicine Department of Epidemiology and Public Health's Public Service Honor Roll. She was a Policy Fellow at the University of Southern Maine's Muskie School of Public Service in 2006 and 2007. She received an MPH degree in Health Policy and Resources from Yale University and a BA degree in Psychology from Colby College.