HHP per-course lecturer honored by world’s largest public health organization

by Emma Carberry | February 14, 2019

Dr. Celeste Monforton, per-course lecturer in the Health and Human Performance Department, has dedicated her working life to improving the working lives of others. As an expert in occupational health and safety, Monforton’s research and practice focus on eliminating workplace hazards and improving the quality of life for those in dangerous working environments.

“We all spend half of our waking time at work. It should be something that we enjoy. It should be something that we’re inspired by, but we also know that for many people, their work has characteristics that can adversely affect their health,” Monforton says, adding “People shouldn’t be injured or made ill by their work.”

Monforton is a member of the American Public Health Association (APHA), the largest public health organization in the world. For years, she has partnered with the APHA to advocate for better working conditions for people in various careers. According to Monforton, the small staff in the APHA’s government affairs office relies on the APHA members not only to bring public health issues to their attention, but also to produce the research support necessary to move reform forward. Whenever issues of worker health and safety arise, she and her colleagues jump on the opportunity to have APHA weigh in with letters to members of Congress and the decisionmakers in government agencies. Writing on behalf of the APHA rather than as a private citizen allows Monforton’s messages to carry more weight, and her continued advocacy also helps the APHA to advance the public health issues that need to be given more attention. In 2018, the organization recognized Monforton’s tireless efforts with their Advocate of the Year award. The award is given annually to just one of the over 25,000 APHA members whose advocacy signifies an outstanding contribution to the public health field.

Humbly, Monforton says that "receiving this amazing distinction from the APHA is simply a reflection of the work that public health needs to continue to do. I am just one person of many, many who are involved in public health and embrace our responsibility to be advocates for what we know is right.”

Throughout her almost thirty years as an occupational health and safety investigator and researcher, Monforton has advocated for people in jobs that are often overlooked. The hazards that can adversely affect their health range from fundamental (such as a lack of bathroom breaks for poultry workers who are expected to process 140 birds each minute) to severe occupational diseases (like the Progressive Massive Fibrosis that is at epidemic levels today in Appalachian coal miners). As a national expert on health and safety for mine workers, Monforton was recently featured on an episode of PBS’ Frontline called “Coal’s Deadly Dust.”  She says her passion is borne from the fact that public health is a “people field” and that she gets to talk with real, often forgotten, people frequently. She is constantly motivated by meeting with family members whose loved ones have been killed on the job and those families saying they would never want this to happen to anyone else.

At the end of the day, Monforton says, workplace hazards can be prevented. In order to spread her knowledge to future public health advocates, Monforton teaches two courses at Texas State each year. In the spring, she teaches Issues in Environmental Health and in the fall, she teaches Worksite Health Promotion. The message she passes on to her students: “You shouldn’t go to work to provide for your family, but have to sacrifice your health or your life to earn that paycheck.”