When Traci and Mark Lerner’s children were young, they enjoyed building forts out of blankets. It remained a warm memory even as their children grew up. So when the family wanted to establish a foundation to support equal access for children to basic necessities, such as education and health care, they called it the Blanket Fort Foundation.
“We talked about how blankets give comfort to so many,” Traci Lerner says. “This is about creating comfort, warmth and protection for those in need.”
The foundation is supporting a new professorship in pediatric population health and health equity research at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center. Pediatric public health researcher Sara Johnson has been named the inaugural recipient.
Johnson, in 2014, co-founded the Rales Center for the Integration of Health and Education, which she now directs. The center designs innovative models of integrated school health, including a comprehensive school-based health center at KIPP Baltimore, which operates two public charter schools on a shared campus in West Baltimore. She also is director of the General Academic Pediatrics Fellowship at Johns Hopkins and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Consortium for School-Based Health Solutions.
“It’s incredibly humbling,” Johnson says about being selected for the honor. “I am passionate about the work that I get to do with my colleagues in Baltimore to raise the profile of health equity research and population health, and I am immensely grateful to the Lerners and their Blanket Fort Foundation for supporting this new professorship. I see this as a great opportunity to advance collaborative research that puts the well-being of kids and families in Baltimore at the forefront.”
As a permanent endowment, the professorship will provide continuous financial support into the future, notes Allison Baker, executive director of development for the Children’s Center. “Endowed professorships empower us to attract and retain the finest faculty and academic leaders, and support their work as teachers, scholars, researchers and clinicians — in perpetuity,” says Baker.
Johnson’s interdisciplinary research has focused on the impact of early life adversities, such as chronic stress or poverty, on lifelong health and interventions to protect children from these impacts. One study is examining pathways to success in three generations of Baltimore families to learn how to support early childhood development and health into adulthood. “In a nutshell, I’m really interested in protecting kids’ potential and how we can design interventions that make it possible for every child to grow up maximizing his or her potential,” she says.
Through the professorship, Johnson hopes to expand collaborations among Baltimore-based research institutions, such as Baltimore’s Promise, to study ways to translate health equity research to practice in the city. She also plans to support junior faculty members and trainees into developing additional capacity at Johns Hopkins for pediatric health equity work.
“There’s a constant tug at our hearts to bring greater health care and greater equity to kids in the city,” Traci Lerner says. Adds Mark Lerner, “This should gain traction and create tremendous benefits health-wise, educationally and otherwise, for children and families in Baltimore.”