Natalie S. Burke
President and Co-Founder – Washington, DC

As president of CommonHealth ACTION, Ms. Burke provides vision and leadership for CHA’s initiatives, manages components of day-to-day operations, works collaboratively with funders, and develops external relationships that build organizational sustainability and capacity. In her programmatic work, she provides technical assistance to local governments and community-based organizations, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies (Health Policy Institute), the Maryland-based Kaiser Permanente Community Health Initiative, and to the National Black Caucus of State Legislators, to name a few. The aforementioned technical assistance is in the areas of public health program design and planning, policy analysis, facilitation, grant management, strategic planning, community based public health interventions, research, writing, and brokering community level relationships to support funded initiatives. In connection to her work with the Joint Center’s Place Matters Initiative, Ms. Burke co-authored a chapter in the second edition of “Tackling Health Inequities through Public Health Practice” (2010). Recently with support from AT&T, she authored a telehealth-focused Op-Ed in the Washington Informer and developed webinars that explore the intersections of health and technology. Her particular interest is in equity issues emerging within the field of telehealth, and technology’s unique, increasingly powerful relationship to health outcomes for historically marginalized communities. In 2010, Ms. Burke was selected to participate in the Lead the Way Fellowship for non-profit executives, sponsored by New York University. Since the mid-1990s, Ms. Burke has held positions in public health and health care. Seven years of her work included managing the Turning Point National Program Office (NPO) at the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) in Washington, DC. A graduate of the University of Maryland with a degree in Government and Politics, prior to joining NACCHO, Ms. Burke worked on federal health policy analysis as a fellow at the National Health Policy Forum and was on staff at the National Institutes of Health. Ms. Burke believes, “Through collaborative, strategic interventions and effective policy change, we can create conditions that provide equal opportunities for all people to achieve optimal health.”

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