03/22/2025
“Walking up to someone and asking what they need can feel offensive,” she said. You have to lead with humanity.
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www.jenkinsphc.com
It’s a Tuesday morning, and Brittaney Jenkins is driving her three-year-old daughter to daycare. From the backseat, her toddler’s voice rises with confidence:
“I am obedient.”
“I am beautiful.”
“God is good.”
“Thank you, Jesus.”
These daily affirmations she and her daughter repeat may sound small now, but Brittaney knows they’re planting seeds. Words matter. And she’s building a life, and a career, around using positive words well.
As the founder of Jenkins Public Health Consulting, LLC and a certified health education specialist, Brittaney trains health professionals, from physicians to community health workers, on how to actually connect with the communities they serve. Her work goes beyond messaging. It’s also about designing programs and building trust with words that work.
“Walking up to someone and asking what they need can feel offensive,” she said. You have to lead with humanity.
She gives an example of how she’d approach someone who’s smoking. Instead of lecturing, she would smile and say, “You’re too good looking to be smoking that.” And just like that, the guard comes down. Then she’d ask, “Have you ever thought about quitting to protect your smile?”
It’s small moments like these that shape her mission: helping organizations effectively communicate about their health programs to help bring change to communities.
Since launching her company in 2018, Brittaney has trained teams across Birmingham, from a downtown pharmacy running a diabetes self-management program, to advising a Birmingham health-tech company. She’s hosted community-based workshops at the Birmingham Public Library and helped fine-tune messages of other health initiatives to improve awareness and participation. The changes have people stopping to take notice and make changes in their own health journey.
“It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it,” she said.
On Wednesday, April 9 at 12 p.m., she will partner with the Birmingham Public Library and lead a free Zoom workshop on how to build sustainable health programs for under-resourced communities. It’s geared toward anyone in public health, healthcare, coalitions or community outreach. Topics will include how to make your programs stick, how to check your own biases, and how to reach people online and offline without missing the mark. To register, visit www.jenkinsphc.com.
In the world of public health, it matters who’s doing the work. Certified health education specialists like Brittaney work to bring advanced training, lead teams and design programs that drive results, and in many cases, open the door for insurance reimbursement, which is something community health workers in Alabama can’t yet do.
"We are just trying to improve program delivery and communications to rebuild trust with health professionals so people can access resources, reduce unnecessary hospital visits, and prevent avoidable diseases and deaths," she said.
