Janet Phoenix, M.D., M.P.H.

Janet A. Phoenix, M.D., M.P.H. is Executive Director of the Coalition for Environmentally Safe Communities, a national nonprofit organization providing technical assistance to communities at risk for environmental disease. She is a physician trained in public health who has managed research, risk communication, and health prevention and promotion programs for many organizations. She is also Associate Professor of Research in Environmental and Occupational Health in the School of Public Health and Health Services at George Washington University.
She received her B.A. in anthropology from the University of Colorado in Denver and her M.D. from Howard University. Dr. Phoenix also completed a Masters of Public Health from the Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
Dr. Phoenix has managed two community-based participatory research programs with faith-based organizations: one to improve lead poisoning prevention for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the other a project for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to provide educational interventions on childhood asthma and lead poisoning. She has directed health education activities at the Alliance to End Childhood Lead Poisoning (now the Alliance for Healthy Homes). She has been a member of two federal advisory committees: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Childhood Lead Advisory Committee and the EPA’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee. Among her international activities, she has provided assistance to the Egyptian government, the Polish government and the Silesian Medical Academy, and EPA’s Office of International Activities. She organized an international lead conference, Healthy Children, Healthy Environments, which brought together technical experts and community-based representatives from around the world. She has written numerous articles relating to environmental health and lead poisoning.