Walker will leverage public health background in Missouri House

Representative-elect Cora Faith Walker, AB ’06, MPH ’10, came to the Brown School to study healthcare policy. She has leveraged her expertise to run for public office, and starting next year she will represent the 74th District in the Missouri House of Representatives.

In a recent interview with the Politically Speaking team of St. Louis Public Radio, Walker discussed her policy goals, her commitment to social justice and equity, and her identity as a “policy wonk.”

Walker and her husband live in Ferguson, and the district she will represent extends to include portions of nine municipalities in north St. Louis County, such as Florissant, Hazelwood, Jennings and Normandy.

“We made the decision [to move to Ferguson] after the shooting death of Michael Brown,” she says. “We really saw what was going on in the community and felt really compelled to be a part of helping to move the community forward after what occurred in Ferguson.”

She emphasized the need for healing as well as for policy progress, and she cited her support for health-related policies that can support the development of productive and healthy individuals, families and communities.

“One of the main goals of the Ferguson Commission was expanding Medicaid. There’s been a lot of talk about trauma-informed care; that’s important. School-based health clinics. There’s a growing realization of the impact of toxic stress on health and health outcomes,” she says. To move forward, Walker says, the region needs “healing in a figurative sense, but also in a very literal sense as well.”

To hear Walker’s full interview, click here.