How race affects health outcomes
Dr. Camara Phyllis Jones, MD, MPH, PhD, is a research director on Social Determinants of Health and Equity in the Epidemiology and Analysis Program Office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Trained as a family physician and epidemiologist, her work focuses on the impact of racism on health. She uses a number of allegories to explain how racism affects the health of poor, disadvantaged communities. In this interview with a CDC colleague, Jones uses a story about gardening, soil and common flowers to explain varying levels of racism, from institutionalized racism to personally mediated racism and internalized racism.
Dr. Jones was the Assistant Professor at the Harvard School of Public Health from 1994-2000. She has won several awards, including the 2011 John Snow Award by the Epidemiology Section of the American Public Health Association. She speaks at The City Club of Cleveland on July 13th. The week following her talk, the Greater Cleveland community is invited to join us here for a forum on the local impact of racism on health service delivery and outcomes.
Place Matters: Cuyahoga County
Decades of disjointed federal, state, and local policies have caused social and structural issues that impact urban community health. The Cuyahoga County PLACE MATTERS team is guided by its vision for a Cuyahoga County where people can thrive because there is equitable access to resources and opportunities, whether, economic, social or environmental, that are necessary to attain the highest quality of life. The team informs, influences, and engages policy makers and community members to use an overarching health equity lens for the development of policies that create conditions for optimal health such as safe housing, adequate green space, clean air and water, access to healthy foods, access to quality health care, and quality education. It is intended that the long-term impact of these efforts will improve health outcomes and reduce inequities, allowing urban communities to thrive
PLACE MATTERS is a nationwide initiative of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, Health Policy Institute. The initiative is intended to improve the health of participating communities by addressing social conditions that lead to poor health. The national learning community consists of 16 PLACE MATTERS Teams responsible for designing and implementing health strategies for residents in 21 counties and three cities. The Health Policy Institute provides technical assistance to participating Teams in the form of facilitation, Design Lab meetings (including national-level experts and peer-to-peer learning opportunities), technical assistance grants, and access to data. For more information see the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
The “Why Place Matters” speaker series is sponsored by the Saint Luke’s Foundation in partnership with the Cuyahoga County PLACE MATTERS team. The series is hosted by the City Club of Cleveland to provide a forum for an ongoing conversation directed toward addressing chronic public health inequities across Cuyahoga County.
Past Speakers
Dr. Gail C. Christopher
Dr. Gail C. Christopher is the Vice President for Programs, Food, Health & Well-Being at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Dr. Christopher is recognized nationally as a leader in health policy, with particular experience in the issues related to social determinants of health, health disparities and public policy of concern to minority populations. A 2010 analysis of life expectancy data by the Cuyahoga County PLACE MATTERS Team, a group of local leaders developing strategies on how where we live, work, and play impacts health, reveals a 24-year difference in life expectancy between individuals living in Lyndhurst versus individuals living in the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland.
See her speech at the City Club of Cleveland here
Ron Sims
Ron Sims, Former Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, discusses urban sprawl and poverty as obstacles to Cleveland's future. Sims is also the former County Executive of King County in Washington. Among the eye-opening statistics he cites is the long term health effects of proximity to a playground.
Angela Glover Blackwell
Angela Glover Blackwell, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of PolicyLink, which began work in 1999 and continues to drive its mission of advancing economic and social equity. Under Blackwell’s leadership, PolicyLink has become a leading voice in the movement to use public policy to improve access and opportunity for all low-income people and communities of color, particularly in the areas of health, housing, transportation, education, and infrastructure.
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Resources
The True Wealth of Health
The World Health Organization identifies the main determinants of health as being related to the social and economic environment, the physical environment and individual characteristics and behaviors. Although all of these are critical and integral to the general health of people all over the world, a few of them stand out as more heavily weighted and relevant to the challenges in Cleveland and Northeast Ohio. These are: income and social status, employment and working conditions, social/physical environments and culture.
Read the reportThe Re-Emergence of Concentrated Poverty
According to this recent report published by the Brookings Institution, the number of individuals living in extremely poor neighborhoods grew faster in Northeast Ohio suburbs faster than elsewhere in the nation.
Read the reportKey Social Demographic and Population Dimensions
Earlier this year, the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development in partnership with the Saint Luke's Foundation released a series of 12 data briefs on key social demographic and population dimensions of three neighborhoods on the east side of the City of Cleveland: Buckeye-Shaker, Mount Pleasant, and Woodland Hills.
Read the reportNeighborhoods, Obesity, and Diabetes
The question of whether neighborhood environment contributes directly to the development of obesity and diabetes remains unresolved. The study reported on here uses data from a social experiment to assess the association of randomly assigned variation in neighborhood conditions with obesity and diabetes.
Read the report
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