Dr. Mona Hanna
During this final Sunday of Arab American Heritage Month, the members of the God’s Diversity Committee wish to celebrate Mona Hanna, whose relatively quiet and predictable life as a pediatrician, was transformed into that of a fierce, unrelenting, environmental activist in order to protect the children entrusted to her care.
Dr. Mona Hanna, a pediatrician, scientist and public health advocate, is best known for exposing the full deleterious health consequences of the 2015 Flint water crisis for all its residents, but especially for its children. Dr. Mona, as she is affectionately known to her young patients and their parents, was born in Sheffield, England, in 1976, to Iraqi scientists who were vocal critics of the Baath regime. Their activism made them targets of the authorities and they were forced to immigrate to a safer place to raise their children. They eventually settled in Michigan where Dr. Mona was educated from elementary through medical school and where she and her husband, Dr. Elliott Attisha, also a pediatrician, and their two daughters still reside.
Flint, Michigan, once a prosperous city with a thriving middle class, saw its wealth evaporate with the decline in the auto industry. Currently, 42% of its residents live below the poverty line. Many of these residents are Dr. Mona’s patients. In 2014, in order to save money, Flint’s leadership decided to switch its water supply from the Detroit River and Lake Huron, for which Flint paid Detroit a fee, to the highly polluted Flint River. To save additional funds, Flint further elected to alter the purifying process by eliminating chemicals that would prevent lead from leaching from the city’s old pipes into the water. Without these basic corrosion controls, the water could become contaminated.
Dr. Mona had been aware of some problems with bacteria in the water and rashes among residents and her patients. After she began reviewing her patients’ medical records, she noticed that the percentage of children with elevated lead levels had increased dramatically after the water switch. She saw this as a potential serious health problem and called a press conference at which she presented her data. But government officials dismissed her and discredited her research which, due to the urgency of the matter, had not yet been peer-reviewed. The urgency stemmed from Dr. Mona’s understanding that the consequences of lead exposure, while not immediately apparent, can affect long-term brain development in children. Research shows that it can lower IQ levels, and increase the need for special education services to counter attention deficit disorder and impulsivity. Long-term studies have also shown correlations between lead exposure, violence and even criminality. Dr. Mona argued that because lead exposure has lifelong cognitive and behavioral consequences that are not initially apparent, there was an ethical duty to be proactive and adopt multiple interventions to promote children’s brain development and to limit the impact of the crisis in Flint and in all U.S. cities where pipes are old and in need of replacement. Despite the initial criticism and lack of support, she persisted and eventually convinced her critics of the seriousness of the problem and the urgent need to act.
Since that time, Dr. Mona has received numerous grants to further study the impact of toxic substances in water, especially in poorer communities and has promoted the need to eliminate lead pipes and adopt safer alternatives. She has testified before congressional subcommittees on health and the environment and on her research findings. She was named to Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2016. Her 2018 book, What the Eyes Don’t See about the Flint water crisis, was well received and named a New York Times 100 Notable Book of 2018 and the Best Science Book of 2018. In 2023, Dr. Mona was named the Associate Dean for Public Health in the College of Human Medicine at Michigan State University, her alma mater. Her most recent project is the creation of RxKids, which provides cash assistance to expectant mothers and infants in Flint to address poverty as a root cause of health disparities. She was recognized for this innovative and most important work by being named a 2025 USA Today Woman of the Year.
When Dr. Mona was recognized by the American Library Association in 2023, during their initiative on building resilient communities, she shared her views:
“If history informs action and words shape thinking – preserving the truth of the lived experience is critical for our communities… When science and community come together and speak truth to power – we feel heard, seen, and thrive – and our eyes open to how society should be – a place where resilience is built into the fabric of our nation rather than demanded of our most vulnerable.”