Promoting a Culture of Health through Racial Healing and Transformation
January 27, 2021 @ 10:00am (AKST)
In America, countless individuals and communities of color experience a heavier concentration of health risks and worse health outcomes than their white counterparts. Low birth weights, infant mortality, affordable housing, access to health care, food security, higher exposure to air pollution, contaminated water, lead poisoning, police violence, the list of inequities goes on. January 27th, I’ll be speaking with Dr. Gail Christopher about her decades-long efforts to address these and other disparities across the nation and Alaska’s particular challenges and opportunities to acheive a high quality of health for all.
Dr. Christopher’s work focuses on the relationship between racial inequity and disparities of environmental health and justice. Consequently, racial healing and transformation of existing beliefs, policies, and practices play central roles as solutions. Dr. Christopher’s most recent work with the National Collaborative for Health Equity also provides communities and organizations research-based roadmaps and data-driven benchmarks to guide their efforts to reimagine healthier communities and ‘undo the health consequences of racism’. This webinar will be a conversational interview format, so you’re invited to send along questions prior to the 27th. I hope you can join us for this important conversation.
National Collaborative for Health Equity https://www.nationalcollaborative.org/
The HOPE Initiative https://www.hopeinitiative.org/
Culture of Health Leaders https://cultureofhealth-leaders.org/
Dr. Christopher’s Website https://drgailcchristopher.com/
Dr. Christopher speaking about ‘How race is connected to chronic disease’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQeIH3E6ruc&feature=emb_title
Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation Implementation Guide https://healourcommunities.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/TRHTImplementationGuide.pdf
W.K. Kellog Foundation’s Racial Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion resources https://www.wkkf.org/news-and-media/article/2020/09/one-journey-wkkfs-new-racial-equity-diversity-inclusion-resource
Children’s Environmental Health Indicators: A summary and assessment (on the Childrens’ Environmental Health Network Website) https://cehn.org/resources/cehindicators/
Alaska Native Dialogue on Racial Equity (ANDORE) project hosted on First Alaskans Institute’s website https://firstalaskans.org/alaska-native-policy-center/racial-equity/ – Youtube video on ANDORE Project.
Alaska Public Media’s event Conversations That Matter: Envisioning Racial Equity in Alaska hosted by Lori Townsend Full hour-long session.
Truth and Reconciliation: A force needed in Alaska? by Heather Parker J.D., published in the Alaska Law Review in 2017 https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1525&context=alr
Healthy Alaskans score card – A health improvement plan for Alaska https://www.healthyalaskans.org/data/scorecard/
Featured speakers
Dr. Gail Christopher is the Executive Director of the National Collaborative for Health Equity, founder of the Ntainu Childrens Garden Center for Healing & Nature, and former Senior Advisor and Vice President to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, where she worked for 10 years with a focus on children’s health. Dr Christopher is currently on the board of the Children’s Environmental Health Network and is Chair of the Board of the Trust for America’s Health and a Fellow of The National Academy of Public Administration. Her expertise focuses on health policy, integrative health medicine, social determinants of health, and health inequities.