Dr. Jennifer Turner's Expertise
Education
To support her mission of health, Dr. Turner went back to school and received her Doctor of Public Health specializing in Health Education and Behavioral Science, from Rutgers School of Public Health, where she currently teaches as an Adjunct Professor.
Given her interest in making communities healthier through health programming and policy, Dr. Turner’s dissertation evaluated the Healthy Schools Program (HSP) implementation at four, New Jersey, K-8 independent charter schools.
Factors Influencing HSP Implementation
Using the Diffusion of Innovation as the analytical framework, Dr. Turner sought to uncover the level of HSP implementation at each study school, and factors impacting that implementation (e.g., the charter school’s context, social and environmental factors both in and outside of the school that affected HSP implementation).
Study results found the social determinants of health (e.g., economic stability, education, built environment) impacted HSP implementation in schools, as well as parent health behaviors, knowledge, and health status. Consistent themes across all study schools were: 1) The need to improve parent health and parent health behaviors, and 2) The concept that schools were dealing with many other social externalities (e.g., poverty, domestic violence, incarceration, immigration stress) that impacted a student’s ability to learn.
Resource Gaps & the Need for Comprehensive School Support
Teachers and administrators stated that schools were not just schools, they were “community centers” that were created to service the needs of the child, family, and the broader community.
Schools needed to be resourced accordingly, but were dramatically underresourced, or did not have the right kind of resources. Building on her dissertation findings and given the mental health crisis facing today’s youth, Dr. Turner is working with New Jersey charter schools to deliver a health empowerment program focused on youth, starting with adolescent girls.
Dr. Turner serves on various boards and councils supporting health and education. She sits on the Dean of Rutgers School of Public Health Advisory Council, Baruch College Weissman School of the Arts Advisory Council, the Merit School of Music Board of Directors, and is a Northeast Region Trustee for Boys & Girls Clubs of America, leading the Impact Committee supporting club CEO strategic initiatives.
Dr. Turner also created and implemented MADCOOL Girls, a health empowerment course for girls at organizations supporting youth such as charter schools and Boys & Girls Clubs.
Mad Cool Community
A non-profit addressing the Social Determinants of Health, increasing community capacity, and empowering communities to improve their overall well-being.
MAD COOL COMMUNITY is a wellness non-profit providing services (and facilitating services) addressing the social determinants of health to underserved communities at risk for health disparities.
A MAD COOL COMMMUNITY is an empowered community that leverages community stakeholders to unlock the power of their community for the betterment of its people.
MAD COOL COMMUNITY partners with anchor institutions to build community capacity, with a particular focus on increasing the empowerment capacity of schools, and addresses the mental and behavioral health of youth, starting with Gen Z and Gen Alpha girls via our MAD COOL Girls program.
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Dr. Jennifer Turner
Dr. Jennifer Turner’s passion for health and fitness has been cultivated through a multi-decade long journey that started as a personal endeavor and grew into both a personal and professional mission.
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