Christian Thrasher and Catherine Smith // The Clinton Foundation

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In episode 47 of the Disruptors for GOOD podcast, I speak with Christian Thrasher and Catherine Smith from The Clinton Foundation on the impact of COVID-19 across different sectors of our society.

Catharine Smith

Catharine Smith is the chief executive officer of the Clinton Health Matters Initiative (CHMI) at the Clinton Foundation. Catharine previously served as executive director of the Harvard Center for Primary Care where she led business development, strategy, and operations for a think-tank focused on improving value-based, patient-centered care. She has served in program development and management roles across various health care sectors, directing national and global initiatives in hospital medicine quality improvement and primary care systems strengthening. Catharine is currently completing a master's in business administration at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and holds a graduate degree in social science research from the University of Chicago.

Christian Thrasher

Christian serves as Senior Director of Substance Use Disorders and Recovery at the Clinton Foundation. In this capacity Chris oversees all of the foundation’s efforts helping to address substance use disorders. Before joining the Clinton Foundation, Chris served as the Senior Vice President of Behavioral Health at Sharecare, a comprehensive health and wellness engagement platform. Prior to Sharecare, Chris served in several leadership roles in the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2003, Chris founded and became director of the Center of Excellence for Sexual Health (CESH). In addition, Chris was a member of the faculty at MSM within the Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine

Chris earned a BS Degree in Communications and Psychology from the State University College of Fredonia in New York and a MA Degree in Human Sexuality, Marriage and Family Relations from New York University. Chris is a certified Mental Health First Aid Instructor with the National Council for Community Behavioral Healthcare as well as a certified Sexuality Counselor and Sexuality Educator by The American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists.

CHMI
The Clinton Health Matters Initiative (CHMI) works to improve the health and well-being of all people by activating individuals, communities, and organizations to make meaningful contributions to the health of others. The goals of this work is to reduce the prevalence of preventable health outcomes and close health inequity and disparity gaps by improving access to key contributors to health for all people. The Clinton Foundation achieves its goals through strategic cross-sector partnerships and by leveraging technology and digital innovation.

This work includes the Clinton Foundation's Opioid Response Network which fights the opioid epidemic by expanding naloxone access and increasing education and awareness to decrease stigma and curb addiction, while providing communities with the tools they need to combat the epidemic and save lives. The Opioid Response Network builds and mobilizes networks of faith leaders that represent different faith traditions, and equip them with the knowledge, skills, and resources needed to organize community members, reduce the stigma of addiction, and fight substance use disorders in their communities.

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