Helena Jeudin

Helena is a research coordinator at the Center for Health Justice. She works on the IGNITE study, facilitating initiatives that address social determinants of health and well-being among Philadelphia’s most vulnerable communities. As a Haitian immigrant and nearly lifelong Philadelphia resident, Helena has keen interests in both global and local health outcomes. 

Her past work includes several years as a behavioral health case manager, where she helped individuals with substance use and co-occurring disorders navigate health care and social service systems, access treatment, and achieve their holistic recovery goals. Helena joined the Penn community in 2021 to support the Penn Go Vax team’s community outreach efforts, increasing COVID vaccine uptake and addressing vaccine hesitancy in underserved, predominantly Black and Brown, communities of Philadelphia.  

Helena is an emerging public health leader and budding filmmaker who believes in the power of multimedia storytelling to advance public health awareness, policy, and action. She is directing a short documentary that seeks to uplift diverse perspectives and reframe how we identify and define environmental health priorities. Her academic projects also include evaluating a local migrant mental health program and a capstone study on the perceptions of behavior change among men who use violence in their intimate relationships with the goal of furthering our understanding of how to best engage this population towards change.

Helena received a BS in biology and a certificate in health studies from Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. She is currently pursuing an MPH at the University of Pennsylvania.