Jasmine N. Hall Ratliff
Program Officer
Jasmine Hall Ratliff, program officer, who joined the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in 2008, brings her programmatic and grant management expertise to the Foundation’s effort to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015. Seeing her role as “helping to create healthier communities where children have access to affordable, healthy foods and physical activity,” Ratliff focuses her efforts on developing a national RWJF center that provides expertise and support to organizations, policy-makers and communities as they build a nationwide movement to prevent childhood obesity. She describes this national effort as “seeking to reach children in low-income communities, both rural and urban, and in communities of color.”
Previously, Ratliff worked with the Missouri Foundation for Health where she directed the Women’s Health grant program and the development of the Smiles Across Greater Missouri Oral Health program. Within the Women’s Health grant program, violence against women was addressed, and various treatment centers and prevention organizations were funded. She was a member of the Foundation’s Healthy and Active Communities initiative team and contributed to its 2008–2010 strategic plan.
Her prior work included research at the Saint Louis University School of Public Health, and developing a business plan for integrating an off-site acute care facility into the main medical campus of the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
Ratliff earned a master of health administration from the Saint Louis University School of Public Health and a B.A. from the University of Virginia. She is a member of the American College of Healthcare Executives, the Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy, and the Association of Black Foundation Executives. She has presented at the American Public Health Association Annual Conference on the issue of the digital divide and access of African-American women to public health centers, and on religious diversity in a health care setting.
Born in Virginia, Ratliff now resides in Edison, N.J., with her husband, Geoff, who works for Habitat for Humanity in Newark. In her leisure time, she reads historical fiction, goes to the movies and the beach, contributes to a blog, and enjoys her cat, JT, who, she believes, knows how to “talk.”