Her Story
About Dr. Marianne
Marianne Infante is an occupational therapist and community health professional with extensive experience in early intervention, school‑based therapy, home health care, post‑acute care, and life‑skills support. She currently serves as Director of Healthy Community Lifespaces (HCL), a nonprofit dedicated to elevating parent and student voice and ensuring that families and schools receive accurate, research‑based health and safety information.
Through HCL, Marianne partners with the Pennsylvania State Health Improvement Plan (PA SHIP) to advance a Health in All Policies approach, helping communities, schools, and local leaders integrate public‑health considerations into everyday decision‑making. Her work focuses on closing gaps in public understanding, correcting misinformation, and promoting evidence‑supported messaging on child safety, injury prevention, and Safe Routes to School best practices.
Marianne’s background includes providing occupational therapy services for children all ages in schools, collaborated with interdisciplinary teams, led health‑promotion workshops, and developed grants to support inclusion and student well‑being. She also operated Marianne Infante’s Occupational Therapy Services for more than 26 years, serving clients across schools, group homes, community settings, and private care.
Across all roles, Marianne’s commitment has remained consistent: ensuring that parents, students, and communities have access to true, research‑based health and safety information, especially in areas where families are often left without clear guidance. Her work centers on protecting children, strengthening community health, and empowering families to participate meaningfully in decisions that affect their well‑being.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Dr. Marianne
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to a career built on listening, learning, and evolving. My early work as an occupational therapist grounded me in the daily routines that shape a person’s health — the small habits, environments, and supports that make life possible. But after the pandemic, it became clear that promoting health required more than direct service. It required elevating youth voices, strengthening parent perspectives, and ensuring that communities receive true, research‑based health and safety messaging in every routine of life.
That shift pushed me from individual care into community health. Through my doctoral work, I learned the importance of critically evaluating research, questioning assumptions, and examining the environments and messages that truly promote well‑being. I saw how easily misinformation spreads, how often families are left without clear guidance, and how urgently communities need accurate, accessible, evidence‑supported information.
My success comes from staying curious, continuing to learn, and choosing collaboration over isolation. I am committed to sharing research‑led insights, connecting with others who want to bring health into everyday life, and partnering with statewide efforts like the PA State Health Improvement Plan to advance a Health in All Policies approach.
I will continue on this path — helping communities build healthier routines, empowering youth and families to be heard, and working with others to create safe, inclusive, and genuinely health‑promoting places.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received was this: take time to be true to your calling and keep moving forward with purpose and joy. You cannot change the past, but you can choose how you move forward — and you can choose to move forward with joy. That guidance has stayed with me through every transition in my career.
When I shifted from direct‑service occupational therapy into community health work after the pandemic, that advice helped me recognize the importance of youth voices, healthy routines, and the environments that shape our well‑being. It reminded me to stay grounded in what matters most: listening, learning, and aligning my life with my work and with my God‑given talents and purpose.
That simple piece of wisdom continues to guide me as I focus on living a healthy life, research‑based health messaging, community partnerships, and creating healthier, more inclusive places where families and students feel seen, heard, and supported.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
One of the biggest challenges in community health today is the sheer volume of misinformation competing with evidence‑based guidance. Advertising, social media, and even AI‑generated content can twist messages, oversimplify risks, or distract families from what is actually true. These forces pull attention away from reality and make it harder for the public to know which information is grounded in research and which is not.
But within that challenge is also the greatest opportunity. People are hungry for clarity, truth, and trustworthy guidance. There is enormous potential to elevate research‑based health messaging, strengthen parent and student voice, and help communities rebuild confidence in information that is accurate, medically aligned, and genuinely protective.
This moment calls for leaders who can evaluate research critically, communicate clearly, and help families navigate a noisy world. It’s an opportunity to bring health back into everyday routines, to partner with statewide efforts like the PA State Health Improvement Plan, and to create environments where the messages surrounding children truly support their well‑being.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values that guide my work and my life are truth, faith, family, honesty, and the people I choose to walk alongside — my friends and colleagues. Truth matters because real health depends on accurate information, not trends or noise. Faith keeps me grounded in purpose. Family reminds me what is worth protecting. Honesty shapes how I communicate and how I show up for others.
And I deeply value the friends and colleagues who demonstrate genuine care, concern, and healthy ways of living. Surrounding myself with people who lift others up, who act with integrity, and who want to create healthier, more inclusive communities makes the work meaningful and sustainable. These relationships reinforce my commitment to research‑based health messaging, youth and parent voice, and building environments where well‑being is truly supported.
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