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Being a longtime advocate of quality healthcare for underserved communities and a recruiter and mentor for underrepresented nursing students are a few attributes that earned Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s Jerrica Ampadu, PhD, the Outstanding Leadership Award in Health, presented by the NAACP East St. Louis Branch. 

“I am honored to receive this award, and I will never tire of working to improve healthcare for those who need it most,” said Ampadu, RN, CCP, and director of the SIUE School of Nursing’s (SON) WE CARE Clinic on the East St. Louis Higher Education Campus. The East St. Louis native received her award on Sunday, Oct. 10 at the NAACP’s 67^th Annual Freedom Fund Awards Banquet at the Marriott St. Louis Grand Hotel in St. Louis. 

Ampadu has contributed to healthcare for the Greater East St. Louis community for more than 25 years, according to Robert Bett, NAACP political and social chairman, who nominated her for the award. She has worked in telemetry, emergency department, quality improvement and education. As an SIUE faculty member for the past 18 years, Ampadu has taught a variety of courses such as traditional BSN, accelerated BSN, and graduate MSN programs, including adult health didactic and clinical, community health clinical, freshman first semester transition, foundations and assessment, and theoretical foundations of nursing. 

“Dr. Ampadu’s commitment to providing equitable access to care for underserved populations is evident by her multiple accomplishments as WE CARE Clinic director since 2019,” continued Betts. “She has made outstanding efforts to provide necessary services and resources specific to the needs of the community. As a result, the number of patient encounters in the clinic has doubled.” 

Ampadu consistently seeks out grant funding to provide services to the population of East St. Louis. She is currently the project director of a $2.6 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) that focuses on providing chronic care services, while at the same time developing clinic staff and nursing students as providers of chronic care. 

Ampadu is also project director of an additional HRSA grant focusing on telehealth services for patients, “Nurse, Education, Practice, Quality and Retention – Registered Nurses in Primary Care COVID.” When the pandemic started, Ampadu quickly sought out this grant funding to ensure that the patients in the community of East St. Louis could also have the option of accessing healthcare at the clinic virtually, noted Betts. 

Ampadu’s healthcare equity concerns also deal with asthma and breast cancer. She is the project director of a grant funded by the Illinois Department of Public Health, which funds an asthma trigger assessment program for patients at the Clinic and in the East St. Louis community. Recently, she received funding from Susan G. Komen® Missouri to provide breast cancer services for East St. Louis and surrounding communities. 

“Dr. Ampadu’s efforts to improve the health of underserved populations is not only at the local level, but is also nationwide,” added Betts. “She has conducted professional presentations at the local, regional and national level. 

 Ampadu also strives for excellence in her service activities. She serves as the director of the Student Nurse Achievement Program (SNAP), which focuses on the recruitment of students from underserved backgrounds into a career in nursing. Ampadu serves as a mentor and advisor for minority and underrepresented students at SIUE to help them complete their nursing degree. She actively participates in the NAACP’s Afro-Academic, Cultural, Technological and Scientific Olympics (ACT-SO) program by mentoring students. 

“So much needs to be done to bring about equity and needed resources,” concluded Ampadu. “I am glad to play a small part in helping improve the health of East St. Louis and surrounding communities.” 

Photo:
Jerrica Ampadu, PhD, RN, CCP and WE CARE Clinic director, received the NAACP East St. Louis Branch’s Outstanding Leadership Award in Health.