MEREDITH KENNEDY, MPH

Meredith Kennedy, MPH, serves as the Executive Director/CEO of the American Academy of Pediatrics, California Chapter 3 (AAP-CA3), representing San Diego and Imperial Counties. She provides strategic leadership, oversees operational and financial functions, and leads community outreach and advocacy efforts with local and state partners. She has more than 25 years of experience in public health project administration and budget management, including clinical research at UC San Diego. Her background includes broad collaboration with physicians, pharmaceutical organizations, and government agencies, as well as developing policies, reports, and grants for NIH-funded research and clinical trials.

Under her leadership, AAP-CA3 has grown to nearly 600 members and has become a leading regional resource for child health. The chapter has earned multiple national honors, including several AAP Chapter Awards of Excellence and the Outstanding Chapter of the Year Award. Kennedy holds a Master of Public Health from San Diego State University and a Bachelor of Science in Animal Physiology and Neuroscience from the University of California San Diego.

For more than two decades, Kennedy has guided AAP-CA3’s transformation from a small professional association into a central hub for early-childhood initiatives. Her leadership is grounded in a commitment to ensuring that every decision supports the health and well-being of children across the region.

The extraordinary AAP-CA3 team administers Healthy Development Services (HDS), a countywide First 5 San Diego–funded system that provides developmental screenings, speech and language therapy, parent coaching, and care coordination for thousands of families. The chapter also oversees home-visiting programs based on the Healthy Families America model and manages Reach Out and Read San Diego, which has distributed more than two million books through over 100 clinics since 2003.

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