Lindsay DuBois: Dedicated to Empowering People through Public Health Research

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As a child, Lindsay DuBois’ parents called her the “Energizer Bunny.” She was smart, athletic, artistic and driven. In keeping with her high-performing personality, she was always challenging herself to do that little bit extra. It was hardly surprising that she chose to be a pre-med major at the University of Michigan and finished her demanding undergraduate degree in three years. “I was kind of in a hurry to become an adult. I was ready to go out into the real world,” she says. “I’m a very impatient person who wants to get things done.”

Lindsay decided to take a gap year before applying to medical school and landed a job doing public health research for the university’s hospital. That decision changed the trajectory of her life. “I always wanted to help people who didn’t have the same advantages I had. Being a doctor is very downstream, dealing with your patients’ acute and chronic needs, but public health is upstream. It tries to answer the question, ‘How do we prevent this outcome from happening? How do we maximize health?’”

She dropped her medical school plans and pursued a master’s in public health at Michigan and then a PhD at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. During her four years in her doctoral program, Lindsay got married and had her first child while she was writing her dissertation.

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After Lindsay finished her degree, she was hired to lead research and evaluation activities for Special Olympics in Washington, D.C., the nonprofit devoted to promoting respect for and inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities through sports. In addition to their well-known sports activities and competitions, Special Olympics also conducts health screenings and education for people with disabilities. She spent a lot of time educating Special Olympics participants about the benefits of adding extra physical activity into their lives, using real-world data to emphasize the point. “If someone was competing in Special Olympics basketball, that was an eight-week season and they might practice once a week. That’s not enough,” she says. “We weren’t trying to be Weight Watchers but we knew that increasing physical activity levels would improve their health outcomes.” To see if the added physical activity was having the desired effect, Lindsay tracked participants’ blood pressure levels and discovered that they improved as people were more active.

“Lindsay is just brilliant. She brings a lot of light to all her work,” says former Special Olympics co-worker Monica Forquer. “She is really good at figuring out what the problem is and finding the solution. She also looks for ways to make things fun. She knows how to bring some excitement into a meeting when everyone is tired.”

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Last year, she and her husband, who now have three young children, moved back to the Midwest to be closer to family. They settled in Elmhurst, a suburb west of Chicago, and she began job hunting. When she saw the Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research was seeking someone to manage a new $4.4 million grant focused on improving quality of life for people with disabilities, she was seriously interested. Lindsay started in January and is playing a key role in getting the research on home- and community-based services and supports under way.

She concedes that it’s hard working fulltime and having children even when much of the work is remote. “Having three children under the age of five is God’s way of getting back at me for my impatience,” she laughs. “The motto I try to live by is ‘It can almost always wait until the next day.’ That might require you to shift your schedule but it keeps you flexible and adaptable.” She does set limits on her work life, such as not being available after 5:30 p.m., but her work keeps her energized. “I’ve always wanted to help people have the best possible health and quality of life. I feel very strongly that health is a fundamental human right. You’re not free to do the things you want if you don’t have your health.”