Voting Member
Kirsten Thistle is co-founder and partner of Health Impact Strategies, a boutique consultancy that specializes in healthcare communication, advocacy, and stakeholder engagement. For almost 30 years, she has focused on educating policymakers, the media, and the public on the safety of vaccines and the value of immunizations across the lifespan.
Kirsten previously was the campaign director for Health is Primary, a coalition of family medicine organizations, including the American Academy of Family Physicians, focused on raising public awareness about the critical role of primary care in the US health care system. This work included driving initiatives to increase immunization rates across the lifespan.
Kirsten was senior vice president and head of the US Health Care practice at APCO Worldwide in Washington, D.C. She served on the faculty of Johns Hopkins University Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and has taught graduate-level courses in communications and issues management.