As the National Relationships Lead for the newly established Quest for Health Equity at Quest Diagnostics, Stacey Shields Ingram ’86 works to ensure that all individuals have equal access to comprehensive healthcare, especially members of under-served communities. Prior to joining Quest in 2007, she held positions in the banking and telecommunications industries. Stacey received a bachelor’s degree in economics and mathematics from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA from Seton Hall University. She lives in New Jersey.
*Published in the 2021 Alumnae Bulletin
As the pandemic barreled through every state and territory in the United States, people of color – including Blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans – were disproportionally affected, resulting in a staggering number of hospitalizations, deaths, and debilitating side effects. This devastating reality exposed long-standing healthcare inequities around race, ethnicity and income – and gave Stacey Shields Ingram ’86 the opportunity to make a real difference. “I’m leveling the playing field,” she said.
In her pivotal new role as the National Relationships Lead for Quest for Health Equity, a start-up program of Quest Diagnostics that launched in 2020, Stacey partners with organizations like community health centers, minorityserving educational institutions, and select nonprofits to combat health disparities for people of color through multistep outreach efforts that center on clear and consistent communication and preventative measures.
“Healthcare is not equal unless there is equal access,” said Stacey. “And access is impacted by factors like implicit bias, structural racism, financial stability, education, food security and number of other social and environmental determinants.” For example, a person may be able to secure a doctor’s appointment but not the necessary cab fare, time off from a job, or reliable childcare – essential resources that aren’t routinely factored into the healthcare equation.
With skill, kindness, and diplomacy, Stacey facilitates a wide range of barrier-removing, health-forward endeavors. Recent projects include a collaboration with United Way’s “Choose Healthy Life” program that provided equitable access to COVID-19 testing and vaccines, free transportation, and education throughout the Washington, DC area, and a joint initiative in New Jersey with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Stand Up to Cancer that offered life-saving diagnostic testing for multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that unevenly targets Black Americans and is often asymptomatic until the last stages.
“At Quest, the promotion of health equity is still new. While Quest has more than 50 years in the diagnostic lab space, we are learning and growing in this space of health equity,” remarked Stacey, who currently works remotely from her home in the New Jersey suburbs. “Our CEO, Steve Rusckowski, says that when we do well, we have opportunities to do good.”
Stacey’s personal experiences with healthcare inequity have underscored her commitment to fairness and compassion in the health and wellness spheres. Raised by devoted, working class parents in the South Bronx, she did not have medical insurance for much of her childhood. The family’s only options were a cash-only clinic in the neighborhood, which they used sparingly, or the emergency room. Stacey explained that her mother suffered from asthma (prevalent among residents of her Bronx neighborhood) and was admitted to the hospital several times a year.
“I wonder if that would have been necessary if our living conditions were different or if we had access to better health care in our community,” said Stacey, who has also created programs with the Sickle Cell Association, the American Heart Association, and Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC), which serve disadvantaged populations.
A Better Chance scholar, Stacey came to Chapin in Class 9 from a private school near her home. “The contrast between where I grew up and where I went to school was very different, but Chapin was a really amazing experience,” she said. Noting that neither of her parents completed high school, she added, “I did not take the educational opportunities that I was given for granted. I was driven to work hard and to make the most of it.”
She fondly recalled classes like Expository Writing, Russian Literature, Turbulent Decade (about the Sixties), and being among the first students to take AP Computer Science. “And I was in Dance Club. That was my thing,” she exclaimed, emphasizing the choreography and leadership skills this extracurricular strengthened for her. She also loved finessing numbers as the basketball team’s statistician.
A soft-spoken and shy student, Stacey developed further confidence and agency through her involvement with the inaugural Cultural Awareness Program (CAP), which she co-founded with her friend, Wanda Holland Greene ’85. “Wanda encouraged me to lead with her, even though I was scared of my own shadow,” she recalled.
After graduating in 1986, Stacey enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania to study economics and math. For her, Chapin provided not only the solid academic foundation she needed to excel in her college courses but also a deep feeling of belonging, which was especially valuable as she navigated unexpected challenges her freshman year. “I had some negative racial interactions at Penn, but having gone to Chapin, and knowing everybody doesn’t think that way, enabled me to get through those tough times.”
On weekends, Stacey – a self-described “foodie” – can often be found in her kitchen, cooking up her favorite dishes, and enjoying time with her family, including her son and daughter, who are both young adults. She’s also active in her church, the Agape Family Worship Center, which, through her efforts, served as a distribution center for at-home COVID-19 tests
When asked what she finds most rewarding about her work with Quest for Health Equity, Stacey is emphatic in her response. “I am impacting people’s lives,” she said. “Initially, going into a project, of course you want to help thousands, but I realized if you impact just one person at a time, that’s also very powerful.”