October 25, 2016

Family Caregiving—A Public Health Crisis

| By Kim Gilhuly | This last year was the hardest one of my life. And I’m writing a blog about it because my personal experience is a public health issue. In the midst of taking vacation time off to help my 80-year old mom move into a retirement community, […]
June 28, 2016

A Framework Connecting Criminal Justice and Public Health

UPDATE: Our Health Instead of Punishment Program has undergone some exciting updates since we published this blog post. We invite you to learn about our latest work over here. | By Jonathan Heller | HIP has been doing a lot of research about how criminal justice policies and practices affect health. […]
March 21, 2016

Public Health Advocates – Stop Waiting for Evidence about Gun Control!

| By Kim Gilhuly | In public health, especially government-run public health departments, we often debate whether there is “enough” evidence, or whether the evidence is “robust” enough, to justify speaking out and becoming an advocate on a particular issue. A bill in the California legislature right now would fund […]
September 28, 2015

Does Organizing Have a Place in Public Health?

| By Afomeia Tesfai | Many social movements in the United States have used community organizers to mobilize and strengthen collective power to liberate communities from systems of oppression. Today, the concept of “organizing” is becoming mainstream as we watch Black communities unite to address police brutality and reform the […]
August 27, 2015

Climate Action is Health Action: Why Support for California Climate Legislation is Good for Our Health

This week’s blog was originally published by the Public Health Institute (PHI) on August 25, 2015.  “Amid a historic drought that has been linked to climate change, California’s state legislature is currently considering bills that aim to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades. Often considered a bellwether in […]
March 3, 2015

If Black Lives Matter, We Can’t Stay on the Sidelines

| By Jonathan Heller | Let’s not sit on the sidelines. With those words Dr. Mary Bassett, health commissioner of New York City, in a Perspective for The New England Journal of Medicine clearly and boldly declares that health professionals are accountable for fighting interpersonal and institutional racism, because of […]