By Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH (For consultation, contact raronson@verizon.net or call 207 215 7317)
Growing into adulthood with a firmly rooted sense of hope is basic to the capacity of our species to feel healthy. To nurture hope in children is a central task of parenthood.
Human beings can live for roughly 8 to 12 weeks without food, 8 to 12 days without food and water, 6 to 8 minutes without oxygen. But without hope, a certain kind of spiritual death is immediate. And so it is that an inscription found on a cellar wall in Germany written by a Jew in hiding from the Nazis contained these words: “I believe in the sun even when it is not shining, I believe in love even when there is no one there, I believe through any trail there is always a way. And I believe in God when God is silent.”
So our challenge as a society and as public health leaders is to grow services that inspire hope in children. Instead of systems that pathologize, categorize, and lump people into a dizzying array of risks, diseases, and disorders, we need systems that honor children, families, communities, and cultures; celebrate their resilience, creativity, and capacity to heal; that does justice to research showing that a central determinant of health is the extent to which we feel connected to each other and to our communities. Relationships and civic engagement are to health what location is to real estate.
Such connections represent a deep well of protection from stresses and adversity, including traumatic adverse childhood experiences (See the ACE Study). The key questions for public health leaders to address are: How can we create humane environments, i.e. worlds, that make it natural for such bonds to form? How can we design systems to inspire, from childhood on, deep civic and community engagement? Our responses to these questions, and how new public health leaders are equipped to face them, will have a profound impact on the worlds that future generations experience. Humane Worlds Center is here right now to guide communities, organizations, and young people in that quest.
- From a Presentation given by Dr. Aronson at the Amherst College Class of 1969 Alumni Reunion, May 2004
Expertise and experience:
1. Advising and mentoring Amherst College students and young alumni who seek to explore and pursue careers in health.
2. Teaching (until December 2010 at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and as adjunct lecturer at UMassAmherst School of Public Health), mentoring, advising, dialogue, organizing, advocating, and experience to learn, practice, and pursue health in all its dimesnions. Has included courses on health disparities, and cultural and linguistic competence, internships, independent study, research, seminars to build leadership capacity of young people and future public health work force.
3. Synthesizing research on social determinants of health, resilience, traumatic childhood experiences, racism, chronic stress, and conditions for productive dialogue that will have a significant impact on future public health practice.
3. Translating this research into humane MCH and public health practice to improve the health of women and children, with systems that honor families, communities, and cultures.
4. Integrating cultural understanding and respect as a key strategy to end health disparities.
5. Changing the language of public health and medicine to better reflect our ideals and purpose.
6. Bringing multiple stakeholders together to untangle complex public health challenges and take collaborative action to solve them.
Service
1. Inspiring a new generation of leaders in public health and service through a wide range of local, national, and global opportunities.
2. Until January 2011, consultation to individuals, communities, organizations to build capacity in the above, by
a) Inspiring keynotes, presentations, workshops.
b) Organizing forums to build essential but previously unlikely partnerships.
c) Serving as catalyst for intergenerational and cross-cultural dialogue.
c) Writing papers and grants.
3. Organization and facilitation of interactive meetings with broad stakeholder participation to unite diverse parties and spark action to create public health equity.
For more information, contact:
raaronson69@amherst.edu
"A smile is the light in the window of your face, which tells people that your heart is at home."
- Kolawole Bankole, M.D, M.S
1. Advising and mentoring Amherst College students and young alumni who seek to explore and pursue careers in health.
2. Teaching (until December 2010 at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and as adjunct lecturer at UMassAmherst School of Public Health), mentoring, advising, dialogue, organizing, advocating, and experience to learn, practice, and pursue health in all its dimesnions. Has included courses on health disparities, and cultural and linguistic competence, internships, independent study, research, seminars to build leadership capacity of young people and future public health work force.
3. Synthesizing research on social determinants of health, resilience, traumatic childhood experiences, racism, chronic stress, and conditions for productive dialogue that will have a significant impact on future public health practice.
3. Translating this research into humane MCH and public health practice to improve the health of women and children, with systems that honor families, communities, and cultures.
4. Integrating cultural understanding and respect as a key strategy to end health disparities.
5. Changing the language of public health and medicine to better reflect our ideals and purpose.
6. Bringing multiple stakeholders together to untangle complex public health challenges and take collaborative action to solve them.
Service
1. Inspiring a new generation of leaders in public health and service through a wide range of local, national, and global opportunities.
2. Until January 2011, consultation to individuals, communities, organizations to build capacity in the above, by
a) Inspiring keynotes, presentations, workshops.
b) Organizing forums to build essential but previously unlikely partnerships.
c) Serving as catalyst for intergenerational and cross-cultural dialogue.
c) Writing papers and grants.
3. Organization and facilitation of interactive meetings with broad stakeholder participation to unite diverse parties and spark action to create public health equity.
For more information, contact:
raaronson69@amherst.edu
"A smile is the light in the window of your face, which tells people that your heart is at home."
- Kolawole Bankole, M.D, M.S
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