The Division of Community Health is ending its journey, and Division Chief Michelle Lyn, MBA, MHA, retired at the end of 2025. Lyn has served in the role since 2008, working to address health disparities, advance community health initiatives, expand community engaged research, and implement workforce development programs.
“Her work and the work of the division made a remarkable impact that is, gratefully, larger than us,” Anthony Viera, MD, chair of the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health said in an email to the department.
The Division of Community Health was founded in 1998, with the goal of addressing disparities in access to health care and enhancing health outcomes across Durham and surrounding counties. As a result, the division established clinics to provide care for both uninsured and insured populations in partnership with Durham County’s Department of Public Health and Department of Social Services, Durham Public Schools, and Lincoln Community Health Center.
The Just for Us Program, Lyon Park, Walltown, and Holton micro-clinics, and the Southern High School Wellness Center now average 13,000 visits annually. These community health clinics will join Duke University Health System and remain under the leadership of Diane Davis, MPH, PA-C, and Howard Eisenson.
The division was a driving force in implementing care management practices in clinical care settings across the state. Its Local Access to Health Care program (LATCH) provided care management for 18,000 uninsured patients in Durham. Lyn was instrumental in leading the division’s launch of North Carolina’s Medicaid’s pilot primary care, care management network. It quickly evolved into the Northern Piedmont Community Care Network (NPCC), which serves 85,000 Medicaid recipients in 53 primary care practices across five counties.
Under Lyn’s leadership, hundreds of health care professions were trained in the division’s workforce development programs, including the MHS-Clinical Leadership Program, the Duke-Johnson & Johnson Nurse Leadership Program, the Advanced Practice Provider Leadership Institute, and the Nurse Practitioner Entrepreneur Program. Additionally, the division’s community health principles are now essential elements in curricula and clinical rotations throughout the School of Medicine and in strategic planning for LCME accreditation.
“The Department will continue to incorporate the community health perspective as foundational to all we do. It is who we are, all of us,” Viera said.
Moving forward, Mina Silberberg, PhD, vice chief of research and evaluation for the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, and Anh Tran, PhD, vice chief of education for the department, will lead community-engaged research, evaluation, and educational initiatives in the department and with partners across Duke.