As one of five APHA Kaiser Permanente Fellows nationwide, she contributes to the development of a national strategy for food and nutrition programs.
Aspen Humes (MPH ’25) discovered her path to public health during one of the most challenging moments in recent history—the COVID-19 pandemic.
As an undergraduate studying communications at Mississippi State University, Humes watched the pandemic unfold with a critical eye. She said that what she witnessed wasn’t just a health crisis—it was also a communication breakdown that disproportionately affected disadvantaged communities.
“I saw where there was a failure in communication to really reach the communities who need it the most,” recalled Humes. “There was so much jargon being communicated, which made it hard for people to understand how to protect themselves and their families.”
The gap was clear: public health messages weren’t being tailored to the specific needs of audiences. Communities in rural Mississippi, on the south side of Atlanta and in other locations around the country shared a common experience—complex medical information delivered in language that didn’t resonate, without acknowledgment of the medical distrust and limited access that shaped their relationship with health care.
This realization led Humes to take a health communications course in which she worked to develop messaging around vaccine hesitancy. It was her first taste of combining everything she loved: helping communities, communicating complex messages and improving health outcomes.
Choosing Georgia State
When it came time to pursue her Master of Public Health degree, Humes knew exactly what she was looking for: a program with strong community connections and a foundation in the social determinants of health, which are the underlying conditions and circumstances that affect health and well-being.
“Georgia State was just ticking off all the boxes,” Humes said. “I loved the faculty, their research areas and interests. A lot of the coursework and the foundation of how public health was viewed were more in line with what I wanted to give, bring and learn.”
Her choice paid off through experiences that brought public health theory into sharp focus. She recalled a course in which she and other students were assigned to assess MARTA train stops throughout Atlanta—documenting the lived environment, locating the nearest grocery stores and examining the overall health of communities at each stop. For Humes, who chose a stop near her home in the College Park area, the project was eye-opening. She saw stark disparities that are reflected in health outcomes that differ dramatically across neighborhoods—from the south side of Atlanta to the northern part of city.
“It brought me into the context of seeing what public health looked like in my own community and made me value my lived experiences,” Humes said of the assignment.
Building Confidence at SafeCare
Humes’ experience as a graduate research assistant with the National SafeCare Training and Research Center, which is housed in the School of Public Health, proved transformative, both professionally and personally. She worked on developing an interactive app to help providers track the progress of families and contributed to adapting the program to better meet the specific needs of families.
But the impact went beyond technical skills. Coming from a background in communications rather than the biomedical sciences, Humes had felt uncertain about whether public health was right for her.
“I was trying to find my place,” she said. “SafeCare really took my skills, added to my skills, and then showed me how I could use my communication skills to shape public health.”
The supportive work environment built her confidence as both a public health professional and a young person navigating her career. “The faculty and staff were really involved in my process and wanted to see me do better,” she said. “They wanted to see what was beyond for me and, just honestly, were so encouraging.”
Making an Impact Today
After an internship with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in Washington, DC, Humes was one of just five public health professionals nationwide selected for an APHA Kaiser Permanente Community Health Fellowship.
As a Fellow at Kaiser Permanente’s Food is Medicine Center of Excellence, she contributes to developing a national strategy for food and nutrition programs across all Kaiser Permanente regions. Though the center has been working on food as medicine initiatives for years, the center itself only opened a little over a year ago—which means Humes is helping build the infrastructure as the work expands. She's drawn on her communications background to develop assets for the center that incorporate feedback from community members while also working on pilot programs and partnerships.
Outside her fellowship, she volunteers as an Executive Board Member and the Director of Communications and Public Relations for the More Than Numbers Youth Program in Atlanta. The nonprofit helps lower the educational disparities seen among students in the greater Atlanta community. It focuses on getting students to matriculate through historically Black colleges and universities and southern schools—something Humes is deeply passionate about given her experience as a first-generation college and master's student. Since its founding in 2019, the program has served over 110 students and awarded more than $22,000 in scholarships and resources to students.
Advice for Future Public Health Professionals
Humes offers three pieces of advice for prospective students considering public health:
Know your why and stay true to it, say “yes” to opportunities and remember that you have a voice. She emphasizes that the perspectives people bring—whether through lived experience, academic training or professional experiences—have a place in public health.
“Public health is for everybody, and everything is public health,” Humes said. “Workforce development is public health, communications is public health, nonprofit management—that’s public health.”
For Humes, public health isn’t about following a rigid career path. It’s about remaining open to opportunities and staying committed to serving underrepresented communities. "My goal is just to continue to be a champion for communities and to improve the health and the lives of those who need it the most,” she said.