Last month, a group of around 500 people and I participated in a webinar covering the launch of the fearlessly groundbreaking Walking Towards Justice Series. It was organized by America Walks and moderated by Charles Brown, Senior Researcher with the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center. The first episode of the series addressed race and residential […]
Recent events in Charlottesville, VA have sent us reeling. At Active Living By Design (now Healthy Places by Design), we believe that health and wellbeing are essential human rights, and we know that the connections between race, racism, and poor health are well established. As Danielle Sherman expressed in her recent blog, racism and racial […]
Racism impacts our health and well-being. This is something we don’t say often enough, despite the fact that people of color still have higher rates of morbidity and mortality than white people. The stresses of racism start in the womb through stressors on mothers. Continuing in childhood and throughout life, discrimination and oppression are embedded […]
I grew up in southern Michigan near a small town with only a thousand people. I lived in the “country.” That’s what we called anything outside of the one-square-mile town where I went to church and school. There was (and still is) one bank, one bar, a library, and a few ever-changing shops. Growing up […]
I recently completed many years of service as a board member for a local nonprofit that improves the lives of girls and young women. I loved it and felt we were making a real difference in our community. In the last decade, we quadrupled the number of girls served and had measurable, positive outcomes. We […]
Fighting American Nationals picket in front of CORE (Congress of Racial Equity) protesters who were demanding Levitt & Sons to open the Belair subdivision in Bowie, MD, to African Americans. August 1963. My hometown, Bowie, MD, turned 100 last year. The city celebrated its proud history as a railroad town, the cradle of thoroughbred horse […]
There are several definitions of “health equity,” but most would agree with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) definition, which states that “Health equity is achieved when every person has the opportunity to ‘attain his or her full health potential’ and no one is ‘disadvantaged from achieving this potential because of social position […]
Some people leave a lasting impression. They live beyond their comfort zones, their vulnerability reminding you that if you don’t try, you almost certainly will fail. They speak their truth authentically and passionately, paving a way for you to search more deeply for your own. And they lead with a spirit of abundance that cultivates […]
Niiobli Armah IV is founder of We-Collab, a social change organization that works across public and private sectors to accelerate innovation in local communities. He works at Bloomberg Associates, an international consulting firm that helps city governments improve the quality of life for citizens. Niiobli and I have worked together for years and I know […]
Two new reports[1] [2] from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), show that the rate of obesity in the United States has risen yet again. From 2013-2014, about 35% of men and 40% of women were obese. The obesity epidemic is now three […]