Bailey is a member of the Nashville Demand Treatment! Leadership Team and Director of Health in the Metro Public Health Department of Nashville/Davidson County, Tennessee. She received the award on March 11 under the category of Career Public Servant at the Local Level.

As past president of the National Association of County and City Health Officials, Bailey led the workgroup that developed the Protocol for Assessing Community Excellence in Environmental Health tool. She has been appointed to three national committees by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services and to the Environmental Justice Board by the Governor of Tennessee.

Bailey has also worked with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention as a Senior Consultant to the Public Health Practice and Program Office, and a co-chair of the National Task Force for Public Health Workforce Development.

Bailey has received numerous other awards, including the American Public Health Association's 2004 Milton and Ruth Roemer Prize for Creative Local Public Health Work. She has also has made significant accomplishments working with the Nashville health department since 1981, such as linking thousands of residents to health care and helping to develop the strategic Healthy Nashville 2000 plan.