The Lou Wooster Public Health Hero Award is presented annually to recognize individuals, groups, or organizations who are unconventional public health heroes. The award was established in 2007 and honors Lou Wooster, a 19th century Birmingham madam who risked her life to care for the sick and dying during the 1873 cholera epidemic and who helped ensure the city's survival. As a madam in Birmingham, Lou Wooster lived on the seamy side of “polite society”, but when a cholera epidemic struck in 1873, her concern for others came out into the full light of day. Most residents fled the city during the outbreak, but not Lou. She stood her ground against the disease and opened her brothel to the sick and poor, and helped nurse the city back to health.
The UAB School of Public Health’s Broad Street Committee recommends honorees for the award, and one recipient is chosen and presented with the Lou Wooster Award during the annual National Public Health Week. The Broad Street Committee is an external advisory board to the Dean of the UAB School of Public Health.
Past honorees of the Lou Wooster Award are:
- 2024: Birmingham United Neighborhoods
- 2023: Mark Wilson, Jefferson County Health Officer
- 2022: Don Lupo, Director of the City of Birmingham Mayor's Office of Citizens Assistance
- 2020: John Dorsey, Director of Project Horseshoe Farm
- 2019: Pathways of Birmingham
- 2017: Joyce White Vance
- 2016: Patrick Packer and Jerri Haslem, co-founders of Black People Run, Bike and Swim
- 2015: Angelou Ezeilo, CEO and Founder of the Greening Youth Foundation in Atlanta, Georgia
- 2014: Cooking Light magazine
- 2013: Birmingham City Council
- 2012: VF Corporation
- 2011: Frank Stitt, Chef and Restaurateur
- 2010: American Electric Power
- 2009: John Archibald, Birmingham News Columnist
- 2008: Herman Taylor, Director of the Jackson Heart Study
- 2007: Patricia Todd, State Representative and former director of Birmingham AIDS Outreach