Dr. Nicole Harris-Hollingsworth
Board of Health Member
Date Appointed: March 17, 2025
Term Expires: December 31, 2030
Represents: Mount Vernon
Dr. Nicole Harris-Hollingsworth, EdD, MCHES, joined the Board of Health in 2024 as a representative of the City of Mount Vernon. Dr. Harris-Hollingsworth is a senior health systems scientist and is the Senior Vice President, Social Determinants & Impact for Hackensack Meridian Health in New Jersey. In this role she leads the development and implementation of network-wide social determinants of health strategy, stakeholder engagement interventions, and the development of community accessible resources across the Hackensack Meridian Health network.
Dr. Harris-Hollingsworth specializes in the development of community health programs designed to create behavior change and increase knowledge in hard to reach populations including regional school-based programs, national reproductive health organizations and national child welfare organizations. Her interest areas include the development of effective regional collaborations to increase health equity and increasing the use of shared decision making practices between health care consumers and providers to facilitate community engaged research.
She has authored and contributed to numerous articles and publications and is Associate Editor of the electronic Journal of Equity in Health and was an Associate Editor for the journal Progress in Community Health Partnerships. She is a frequent presenter at national and regional conferences for multiple organizations including the Society for Healthcare Strategy and Market Development, American Case Management Association, the American Public Health Association and the Society for Public Health Education.
Dr. Nicole Harris-Hollingsworth has been recognized as a 2024 Becker’s Hospital Review Black Healthcare Leaders to Know and was the recipient of the 2023 Hackensack Meridian Health Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Leadership Impact Award for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. She was also recognized as 2022 Senior Health Executive of the Year by the National Association of Health Service Executives - New York Region, as a 2022 Modern Healthcare Top 25 Innovator, a 2022 NJBIZ Public Health Hero and has been recognized by ROI-NJ in 2022 as a ROI-NJ Influencers: Women in Business, a 2021 Healthcare Influencers of Color, and was an inaugural Fellow of the 2019 Aspen Global Innovators Group Healthy Communities Initiative.
Dr. Harris-Hollingsworth received her Doctoral and Master’s degrees from Teachers College, Columbia University in Health and Behavior Studies and her baccalaureate degree from Cornell University in Health Education. She also was awarded a Post Doctoral Certificate in Executive Leadership from the Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health.
Dr. Harris-Hollingsworth remains deeply committed to community service and serves as a member of the American Hospital Association Population and Community Health Advisory Committee, has served as a national grants reviewer for the Human Resources Services Administration, is a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated, and serves on numerous community boards.
She and her husband, Rey Hollingsworth Falu, have lived in Mount Vernon for the past 24 years and have two sons.