Tori McQueen

Getting the MPH degree is an amazing thing for your career, and right from the very first classes I took, I learned useful tools that I was able to put into play right away.

Current Position: Community Environmental Health Coordinator, MPH Student

Story posted: December 2023

Tori McQueen’s undergraduate major was Biology with an environmental focus. She dreamed of one day being holed up in a lab or out working in a field studying wildlife or ecology. The first job she took with the Montgomery County Office of Public Health was in their water quality division.

“I was out in the field all the time, doing soils studies. I just loved it," she said. “I knew nothing about public health until then; it was my gateway into everything else.”

Today, at the Montgomery County Office of Public Health, Tori handles various environmental complaints, while managing larger projects, like working with Maternal Child Health to develop programming for lead hazard remediation, healthy homes, and asthma intervention.

The nature of Tori’s work today is mostly preventative. “We have an amazing lead program that responds to children who’ve been identified with an elevated lead blood level, but our push has been – and I actually did my whole Integrative Learning Experience* on this – for primary prevention of lead, because the impact of lead poisoning on children’s brains and development is permanent. Once they have been identified with an elevated blood lead level, the damage is already done. So, we’ve been pushing for primary prevention in Montgomery County. One of the best ways to do that is to just get in and remediate as many homes as we can.”

In 2019, Tori and her colleagues secured $1.8 million in funding from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to remediate lead hazards in 50 homes, and additional state funding in 2022 for another 22 homes. The two projects will be completed in 2024, and they’re hoping to increase funding to continue the work.

Tori was part of the grant-writing team to secure the funding, and she serves as the program manager, running the day-to-day operations for these two programs. “This kind of prevention in public health has immeasurable benefits,” Tori said.

Why Earn an MPH Degree

Tori would like to continue to advance her career with the Montgomery County Office of Public Health and many of the higher positions within the office require a master’s degree, so she decided to pursue GMercyU’s MPH degree.

“I loved the Health Equity focus – especially with environmental health, that’s huge,” she said of the program. She applied to GMercyU’s MPH program and began classes in August 2021. She learned she was pregnant soon after but persevered with the degree through the birth of her child and will graduate in December 2023. “[My family and I] said, ‘We can do it all, we’re good!’” she laughed.

Near the end of the program, students complete an Integrated Learning Experience*. When running ideas for it by Program Director Dr. Sharla Willis, Tori said there was one idea that intimidated her, but Dr. Willis urged her to tackle it.

“When it comes to childhood lead poisoning, the ultimate way to handle it is to enact changes in legislation. I’m not a policies person – public health policy is not one of my strengths – but I took on a policy analysis of Philadelphia lead laws and organized all of the data I could find on their effectiveness and limitations, and I put it all together to create a presentation to urge the Montgomery County Board of Health to consider legislation that focuses on primary prevention of childhood lead poisoning in our public health code. (Philly is very progressive with legislation to handle lead in the city.) The project was very academic for me, but it had very specific real-world application.”

Tori just finished the project and hopes to present it next year.

The Need for Public Health

What can be surprising to some is that a significant amount of public health work and progress has happened in just the last several decades. The Water Quality Division of the Montgomery County Office of Public Health was founded in 1991.

As a basic human need, it makes one wonder what water quality was like before the 1990s.

“The PA Sewage Facilities Act was passed in 1966 but prior to 1991, oversight in Montgomery County was with the state,” Tori said. “I have been giving a lecture on Montgomery County Water Quality each semester on campus [to undergraduate Public Health students], and I like to share a picture with students of row homes in Reading, PA in the 1930s with outhouses lined up in the backyards, with their drinking water wells right there. People got sick all the time.”

A Career with Work / Life Balance

“I love working for the Montgomery County Office of Public Health,” Tori said. “They’ve been an amazing employer, they’re very progressive and so attentive to the needs of their employees. I know I want to stay here."

With remote work capabilities already in place before the pandemic, they were able to seamlessly shift in 2020 and provide immediate Covid-19 response. Tori has also appreciated the professional development opportunities they’re given, and their approach to work/life balance.

“They don’t just talk about the importance of balance, wellness, and mental health, they actually put things into practice to make sure that their employees are taken care of,” she said.

*Producing a final, high-quality, written product developed during the Integrative Learning Experience (PUB-790) in the last semester of the MPH program allows students to synthesize the skills learned throughout the program.