Elisha Curry was presented with the Ruth B. Freeman Nursing Award for Population Health Practice during the 2022 GPHA Annual Meeting and Conference on Jekyll Island.

The Ruth B. Freeman award was established to honor Ruth B. Freeman, who provided standards for the nursing profession, standardized nursing practice, and advocated for the further education and educational equality of nurses by insisting that nurses have the same status and curriculum as physicians and other professionals in public health degree programs.

This award is specifically designed to recognize a public health nurse who engages the use of evidence-based practices to develop and deliver public health interventions to high-risk groups and individuals through data mining, community health assessment, and engagement and mobilization of coalitions and partnerships.

Curry has a Bachelor’s in Nursing from Piedmont College and has been an RN for more than 15 years. Prior to joining the Northeast Health District as the Specialty Care Clinic Manager, Curry was a Clinical Research Nurse Coordinator at Mercer University and worked on several important HIV drug trials. She also worked as a clinic nurse at the Macon Public Health District’s Hope Center (Ryan White Clinic) from 2014-2015. Curry also has several years of pediatric ICU experience.