Executive Profile — Board of Trustees

Professional Summary

Dr. Katrina Gomez-Chua is a public health professional with experience in primary care, community medicine, health policy and systems. She had completed her Masters of Public Health from UP Manila in 2019, and have continually enhanced her knowledge base and skills through short courses from St. Luke’s Planetary Health and Global Program, and the University of Washington. In the past years she had represented the Philippine Society of Public Physicians (PSPHP) in key endeavors such as the consensus panels for the Living COVID guidelines and the Philippine Guidelines for Periodic Health Examination (PHEX). As a member of the organization’s Technical and Policy Committee, she had contributed to society positions on emergent matters, most recently being the question regarding changes in the regulation of electronic nicotine delivery systems or “vapes” in the Philippines. Outside of her commitment to PSPHP, she had worked with different groups such as Alliance for Improving Health Outcomes and Innovations for Community Health in partnership with the Department of Health, World Health Organization, UNICEF, and USAID for projects on health systems, disaster risk reduction and mitigation, tuberculosis, and primary care. She also had previous experience as a Medical Officer III in NCR, during which she was involved in the grassroots/community response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Strategic Plan of Action

The key priorities in my term are best summed up as “No One Left Behind in Public Health”. This pertains to the participation and inclusion of individual members in PSPHP, the capacity of the organization to support our colleagues serving the underserved, and ensuring that PSPHP continues to be relevant to future colleagues as well as in the moves towards digital health and integration of tech such as AI in our practice.

A first step would be to update the mapping of PSPHP members, with their respective advocacies and affiliations. This would help visualize the organization’s current network and available resources, as well as highlight possible areas for collaboration and advocacy. This would also open avenues for members to more actively contribute to PSPHP beyond attendance in events.

Second in this strategic plan would be to develop linkages and support systems for underserved advocacies and settings in public health. This includes places of detention, harm reduction and drug law reform, and health of indigenous communities. The aforementioned mapping would help pinpoint persons, expertise, and networks within PSPHP to support practitioners and grassroots organizations in this area, and thus broaden our relevance to these communities and issues that are in danger of being left behind even as the society pushes to support Universal Health Care and other endeavors.

Another point in my strategic plan would be to expand the current efforts to develop the public health profession, by strengthening linkages and training with educational institutions and organizations for professional development. During my term I hope to work with medical schools to pilot test the integration of public health into curriculums, and to also offer public health oriented continuing education opportunities for other public health practitioners such as those in LGUs and NGOs. This would be coupled with efforts such as lay fora increase public awareness about the impact of public health practitioners and opportunities in the field.

A fourth point in my strategic plan would be to increase the organization’s capacity to navigate the changing landscapes of AI and digital health. I hope to emphasize literacy and confidence in handling content and concerns arising from generative AI usage. I wish to prioritize opportunities to utilize AI and digital health to serve the underserved communities, through supporting practitioners, bolstering health systems such as informatics, and improving diagnostics and therapeutics. I also hope to help the organization explore other ways to constructively integrate AI in public health practice, without compromising the integrity of the profession or marginalizing the communities we serve.