Christina Holt Named Interim Director of KU Center for Community Health and Development

LAWRENCE—With the upcoming retirement of a longtime director, a KU research center focused on community and global health has announced new leadership. 

The Center for Community Health and Development (CCHD), a subcenter of the KU Life Span Institute, has named Christina Holt as interim director. Holt, who has been assistant director at the center for six years, will assume the position as interim director as KU senior scientist Vincent Francisco retires from KU in May. 

Holt’s deep experience at the center began when she was a student intern and member of the Kansas Community Leadership Corps. She has served in a variety of roles at the center for 27 years, and most recently began leading a CCHD project in partnership with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation focused on workforce and economic development. 

Holt said she is grateful to carry the center’s mission forward, focusing on advancing participatory research and building the capacity for communities to improve and grow. 

“I’ve dedicated my career to supporting those working to create positive change for the collective good,” Holt said. “It is an honor to step into this interim role and help steward and expand the reach and impact of our initiatives." 

Since 2015, Francisco has led CCHD and served as the Kansas Health Foundation Professor of Community Leadership in the Department of Applied Behavioral Science.

Francisco’s career has focused on translating research into practical applications for community health, and addressing systemic issues by building capacity at local and organizational levels. This has included researching and evaluating community-based interventions for reducing the risk of HIV/AIDS, teen substance use disorder, youth violence, adolescent parenting, and chronic diseases. 

As director, he oversaw the center’s continuous designation as a World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Community Health and Development and expanded the evidence base for how communities create conditions that promote health and health equity. 

Francisco also co-developed the Community Tool Box as an online resource to provide tools and training to support health and development. It launched in 1995. To date, the Community Tool Box has been translated into languages including Spanish, Arabic and Farsi, and it has become a global resource accessed by millions of people each year. 

Steve Fawcett, CCHD senior advisor, was also part of the team that developed the Community Tool Box. He said Francisco’s forward thinking is what has made the resource what it is today.   

“He is not only a very good behavioral scientist who understood how to construct tools that could prepare people to take action, but in addition, he brought a depth of understanding and appreciation for where this new thing called the web was going and what it could do,” Fawcett said. 

Holt has previously served as associate director of the Community Tool Box and continues to provide leadership for the initiative. 

She is currently leading a project at CCHD to work with the Kauffman Foundation providing third-party evaluations and a wide variety of educational and action support for the organization’s Collective Impact Initiative.  

Holt also serves as the primary investigator for projects serving Kansas that address the prevention of sexual and domestic violence and improving maternal and child health. 

Fawcett is the founding director of CCHD and served immediately prior to Francisco. He said Holt is the kind of leader who can identify and attract talent in support of what needs to be done, making her the obvious choice for this position. 

"The center's work is about applying what we understand from research and practice to creating conditions for health and well-being for everybody,” Fawcett added. “She's the kind of leader that can energize people.” 

Creating an environment where people with diverse talents and from different backgrounds can thrive has long been a model of leadership at CCHD, Fawcett added. 

“It’s not like you put them in a blender and turn it on. It's more like you braid them,” Fawcett said. “She understands all that and she does it." 

To honor this legacy of community-focused leadership, the center is hosting a Day of Service in Honor of Francisco’s retirement on May 14.