Health Professions Advisor/Assistant Dean of Students, Amherst College

Health Professions Advisor/Assistant Dean of Students

2011-04-23T19:21:00.002-04:00

Richard Aronson '69, MD, MPH
Health Professions Advisor and Assistant Dean of Students

It is such a great honor to return to Amherst, as of January 2011! While
I've always carried the spirit of Amherst in my heart and stayed connected to this amazing community, I am thrilled to join in the daily life of the College. Ever since my time here as a student, I have had a passion to explore and act upon the meaning of health and the nature of healing. What does it mean to be a healthy person, a healthy family, a healthy community, a healthy society? What does it mean to be open to healing? For those who ponder pursuing a health profession, and for those who have already made that decision, what pathways are available to fit and feed your skills, curiosity, ideals, and dreams? What practical steps does one take to make these aspirations come alive? I am
fully "juiced" to stimulate such conversation and help our students along in their journey.

My own journey has been rich with challenge, learning, and a myriad of
opportunities to promote the health of people and communities, starting with my own health (I'm still working on that!). At Amherst, I majored in Religion, helped organize the Amherst Amigos (a group of us who lived in rural Mexican villages in the summers), and had the good fortune to be involved in the founding of the Amherst ABC Program. Medical school (University of Rochester) and public health school (University of North Carolina) launched me on a career that has included clinical pediatric practice, public service, leadership as a public health physician (in Vermont, Wisconsin, and Maine), and teacher (most recently, at Hampshire College and UMass Amherst School of Public Health). I helped Amherst students start the Public Health Collaborative in 2009. I am now at a time of excitement and commitment to inspire a new generation of health professionals. I can't think of a better place to do that than right here at Amherst.

I continue to be moved and inspired by the curiosity, passion, critical thinking, and thirst for light and justice that thrive at Amherst College. Embracing the opportunity to be fully present here again, I turn to my favorite Amherst song: "In the love of Amherst hearts, abides her greatest glory. As the future still imparts, the old unchanging story. Youth and beauty, learning, faith. Bound by friendship's charter. To the College we have made. With eye and mind and heart."

New Direction January 2011

2011-03-01T17:14:00.001-05:00

As of January 2011, I assumed the position of Health professions Advisor and Assistant Dean of Students at Amherst College. It is such a great honor to return to Amherst, and carry on the work of Humane Worlds in this unique context! While I've always carried the spirit of Amherst in my heart and stayed connected to this amazing community, I am thrilled to join in the daily life of the College. Ever since my time here as a student, I have had a passion to explore and act upon the meaning of health and the nature of healing. What does it mean to be a healthy person, a healthy family, a healthy community, a healthy society? What does it mean to be open to healing? For those who ponder pursuing a health profession, and for those who have already made that decision, what pathways are available to fit and feed your skills, curiosity, ideals, and dreams? What practical steps does one take to make these aspirations come alive? I am
fully "juiced" to stimulate such conversation and help our students along in their journey.

My own journey has been rich with challenge, learning, and a myriad of
opportunities to promote the health of people and communities, starting with my own health (I'm still working on that!). At Amherst, I majored in Religion, helped organize the Amherst Amigos (a group of us who lived in rural Mexican villages in the summers), and had the good fortune to be involved in the founding of the Amherst ABC Program. Medical school (University of Rochester) and public health school (University of North Carolina) launched me on a career that has included clinical pediatric practice, public service, leadership as a public health physician (in Vermont, Wisconsin, and Maine), and teacher (most recently, at Hampshire College and UMass Amherst School of Public Health). I helped Amherst students start the Public Health Collaborative in 2009. I am now at a time of excitement and commitment to inspire a new generation of health professionals. I can't think of a better place to do that than right here at Amherst.

I continue to be moved and inspired by the curiosity, passion, critical thinking, and thirst for light and justice that thrive at Amherst College. Embracing the opportunity to be fully present here again, I turn to my favorite Amherst song: "In the love of Amherst hearts, abides her greatest glory. As the future still imparts, the old unchanging story. Youth and beauty, learning, faith. Bound by friendship's charter. To the College we have made. With eye and mind and heart."

Third Annual Public Health Career Dialogue and Mentoring at Amherst April 16

2010-04-11T09:49:00.006-04:00

The third annual Amherst College Public Health Career Panel, Dialogue, and Mentoring will take place on Friday, April 16, 2010, at 2 pm in the Cole Assembly Room in Converse Hall. The Amherst College Public Health Collaborative - with support from the Career Center, Health Professions Group (Carolyn Bassett), Class of 1969 Project (Justin Grimes), Center for Community Engagement (Molly Mead), Alumni Office (Betsy Cannon Smith) and Five College Culture, Health, and Science Program (Elizabeth Conlisk and Chris Dole) - has put together a uniquely exciting opportunity for Amherst and Five College students to get a clearer picture of the multiple dimensions and opportunities for a life of consequence offered through public health. The panel is outstanding: Joseph Nwadiuko '08, Donald Lombardi '64, Nils Bruzelius '68, Allison Sullivan '88, Lawrence Osborn '63, Gary Forester '69, and Asinath Rusibamayila Mount Holyoke '10, with Richard Aronson '69 as facilitator. After the panel and dialogue conclude, the group will move over to the Career Center where, starting at 4 pm, students will be able to have individual mentoring sessions with the panelists. Many thanks to Lili Ferguson '10 for her tireless work to plan for this event, along with Kinjal Patel '13. We look forward to seeing you!

Humane Worlds Maternal and Child Health Updated Description

2010-04-04T13:37:00.004-04:00

Humane Worlds for Maternal and Child Health
Inspiring a New Generation to Public Health and Service
Spring 2010
Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH

Since September 2009, I have focused my energy on teaching public health as an adjunct faculty at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts; and continuing to work closely with individual students excited about public health and with the Amherst College Public Health Collaborative; and participating in the Five College Culture, Health, and Science Program. The teaching at Hampshire will continue into the fall of 2010 and, I hope, beyond. The following is a revised and updated version of Humane Worlds for Maternal and Child Health.
Purpose: To inspire a new generation of leaders in public health and service to create conditions under which all people have the full equal opportunity to thrive in body, mind, and spirit.
Background: Public health and public service face local and global challenges that require multifaceted inter-disciplinary approaches to address underlying root causes and respect the language and culture of all involved. Our objective is to create a more humane and equitable world. To make progress, we need broad participation of many stakeholders, which requires new forms of leadership. Humane Worlds for Maternal and Child Health provides students with various classroom, research, and experiential opportunities to learn about public health and practice such leadership. We draw on research that shows 1) How various forms of inequality, injustice, and stress influence health and create unconscionable public health disparities, 2) How resilience and other positive resources, such as the use of clear humane language, provide the potential to create health equity, and 3) How inclusive dialogue, collaborative action, and cultural and linguistic competence form the foundation for the new leadership. We provide workshops, papers, lectures, courses (currently on health disparities, and cultural and linguistic competence at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts), and community engagement on the translation of this research into humane practice and public policy. We provide educational opportunities to students who seek to learn and practice such leadership. We mentor those who have or are exploring a passion for public health and public service, and support them with tools to express their idealism in action. Our method of choice for this work is Future Search, a unique planning process that has been used with success worldwide for 25 years.

By this means we seek to unite stakeholders and serve as a catalyst for essential but previously unlikely partnerships. Our intention is to enable people to discover common ground for action that they did not realize they shared. Such discovery can lay the foundation for leadership needed to bring dignity, hope, and equity to women, children, and families. We seek to move away from systems that thrive on pathology, medical diagnosis, and risk reduction. Instead, we envision systems and policies that derive their power from resilience, trust, respect of culture and language, and community. Our species has a remarkable capacity for healing and cooperating for the common good. The purpose of the Center is to mobilize that capacity. To support this service mission, we support research on effective methods and mentor those who intend to practice new forms of social action. In so doing, we equip a new generation of leaders with lifelong tools to actualize their ideals.

Public Health: Our purpose in public health, defined by the USA Institute of Medicine and World Health Organization, is to foster conditions that assure optimal health in mind, body, and spirit. We commit to ending health inequities and protecting human dignity. In Maternal and Child Health, we seek to change social conditions so that children experience humane worlds. Such worlds help meet basic needs and support their safety and well being.
Vision: Our vision is to bring the highest ideals of public health into the lives of children and families everywhere and to improve their health by:
1) Humanizing the worlds that they experience;
2) Changing how we think about public health to embrace every facet of their lives;
3) Creating forums for dialogue that lead to effective action on global health inequities; and
4) Educating and inspiring a new generation of public service leaders to carry on this work in the long term.

Goals: We seek to 1) Create equity and end MCH disparities by radical strengthening of the capacity of all concerned parties for participatory leadership. 2) Involve young people in all aspects of our operation, so as to educate and inspire new leadership in public health. 3) Set foundations for societal changes to make equity and justice in MCH a reality; and 4) Challenge individual and organizational biases; 5) Respect all voices, including those historically marginalized; and 6) Promote opportunities for shared learning.

Our expertise:
1. Teaching classes, mentoring, advising, dialogue, organizing, advocating, and experience to learn and practice public health with a focus on community empowerment and uplift.
a) Individual and group mentoring.
b) Internships, independent study, research, seminars to build leadership capacity of young people and future public health work force, with a focus on health disparities and inequities.
2. Synthesizing research on social determinants of health, resilience, traumatic childhood experiences, racism, chronic stress, language, 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. Paying attention to and humanizing 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.

Our service:
1. Inspiring a new generation of leaders in public health and service through a wide range of local, national, and global opportunities, which at this time are concentrated through an adjunct faculty appointment in public health at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.
2. Consultation to individuals, communities, organizations to build capacity in the above, by
a) Inspiring keynotes, presentations, workshops.
b) Organizing forums for dialogue and common ground to build essential but previously unlikely partnerships.
c) Serving as catalyst for inter-generational and cross-cultural and cross-language dialogue.
c) Coordinating and writing papers and grants. Several of these papers are works in progress for which students can offer unique contributions.
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:
Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH
Humane Worlds for Maternal and Child Health
Adjunct Assistant Professor in Public Health, Hampshire College
Mailing address: 19 Maple St.; Hallowell, ME, USA 04347
E-mail: raronson@vmyfairpoint.net
Phone: 207 215 7317 Cell
207 623 3366 Home
www.humaneworldscenter.blogspot.com
www.humaneworldscenter.org

Vision for Public Health within a Liberal Arts College Education

2009-12-19T11:42:00.002-05:00

A Vision for Public Health within a Liberal Arts College Education
By Richard Allan Aronson, MD, MPH

Public health embraces and inter-connects the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences. It is both a science and an art. Its study offers a wide and rich array of opportunities for students to: 1. Think critically. 2. Learn scientific methods of inquiry. 3. Synthesize across disciplines. 4. Understand complex and interconnected factors that underlie health problems. 5. Apply culture and language to health, healing, and disease. 6. Appreciate and learn to translate a body of knowledge into action to improve the health of communities and society.

It is deeply rooted in prevention but, at the same time, seeks to create communities and society that care about people’s health across the life cycle. It embraces language, and it embraces culture. It seeks healing in the deepest sense - healing that is rooted in physical, emotional, spiritual, and environmental balance, well-being, and safety. Whether you are a community health worker, a public health nurse, a teacher, a physician, a social worker, a psychologist, an occupational therapist, a physician’s assistant, a champion for women’s health, an anthropologist, a business person engaged in economic development, a global health expert, an early childhood specialist, a researcher on how and why toxic stress and trauma have lifelong and intergenerational consequences, an expert on resilience, a nutritionist, a leader in public policy, a community leader and activist, or so many other paths, public health provides multiple opportunities:

1. To apply the idealism of a liberal arts education to action on issues that students are passionate and curious about.
2. To view health and healing in the broadest possible context.
3. To create new and expanding partnerships rooted in synergy, synchronicity, serendipity, fluidity, and the art and social science of collaboration across cultures.
4. To celebrate diversity.
5. To discover new and higher levels of common ground and shared humanity that provide a foundation for real, effective, systemic change.
6. To foster humane conditions that bring out the best in people – hope, resilience, spirit, dignity, healing, compassion.

Through the public health mission of bringing together people from different backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives to address public health issues; through opportunities to join in efforts to give a voice to those who have been marginalized and oppressed; and through the classroom energy generated by the study of public health in the liberal arts setting, we can envision a world where every child has the full equal opportunity to thrive in mind, body, and spirit.

And in the community-based learning that is integral to the study of public health, students from early on have the opportunity:

1. To learn to listen more inclusively and humbly to those with whom we work.
2. To learn to honor the people that we serve, especially those whose voices have been stifled and excluded.
3. To learn to put into practice the reality that expertise is not defined by the titles or degrees after your name, but by the unique gifts and skills that you bring to bear to make the world better.

Upon receiving an Amherst College honorary degree in New York City in 2005, Nelson Mandela said, “I come from a country that understands the need for hard work to overcome past destructiveness and to escape a threatened future. But, we have also learned that miracles happen with vision and spirit. The world needs that vision and spirit still, and all the more. We are all threatened by entrenched inequality and divisions. We all must prove ourselves equal to a better possibility. “The power of public health lies in rising to this challenge: To be curious about, to understand, and to change that inequality, and in the process, to partner with multiple, diverse people from all walks of life.

It comes down to continuously exploring, discovering, and acting upon the human spirit in all its promise, resilience, and hope, and to bring light into ourselves, our communities, and our world. 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 the spirit, a certain kind of death is inevitable in just a few seconds. 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.”

Proposal for a Two-Semester Undergraduate Course on Public Health Disparities and the Community

2009-12-19T11:29:00.004-05:00

The potential for a liberal arts education to inform and inspire a new generation of public health leaders is extraordinary. Tapping into a surge of interest in public health on college campuses, Richard Aronson, MD, MPH, is exploring innovative strategies to teach, mentor, and facilitate learning that is rooted in knowledge and experience in the social determinants of health, health equity, and the life course perspective. Through his current position as Assistant Adjunct Professor of Public Health at Hampshire College, he hopes to make this liberal arts approach to public health and health inequality come alive. The Five College Culture, Health, and Science Program and the new Amherst College Public Health Collaborative are two great resources for this work, as well as the Amherst Center for Community Engagement and its counterparts in the Five College community. In this way, the Humane Worlds Center for Maternal and Child Health could find its home. Dr. Aronson welcomes comments on the following draft proposal for a two-semester undergraduate course that would form the core for such a program:

Public health faces challenges that require multi-faceted inter-disciplinary approaches that are rooted in community based learning. Such learning addresses root causes of health disparities and the complex process of respecting the language and culture of diverse communities. The purpose of such learning, which lies at the heart of a liberal arts education, is to equip students with knowledge, critical thinking, and experience to create a more humane and just world. To achieve this purpose, students need to understand, in theory and practice, how broad and equal participation of many stakeholders and collaboration is central to the mission of public health.

We propose a two-semester course at Hampshire College, with vibrant Five-College and Culture, Health, and Science Program participation, which integrates the knowledge of public health disparities with community-based learning and practice. The course will draw on research that shows 1) How various forms of inequality, injustice, and stress influence health and create unconscionable health inequalities, 2) How resilience and other positive resources in people, families, communities, and systems provide the potential to create health equity, and 3) How inclusive dialogue, collaborative action, and cultural and linguistic competence form the foundation for inclusive, community-rooted leadership. The course provides opportunities for inter-generational and multi-disciplinary dialogue, both in the classroom and in the community, to learn and experience such leadership.

First Semester: A series of seminars, lectures, papers, group work, and presentations in the first semester sets the foundation for the second semester of community engagement. These conversations, rooted in discovery of inter-disciplinary topics and approaches to health disparities, seek to move students to listen inclusively and respectfully to diverse stakeholders; to learn to honor the people whom we serve, especially those whose voices have been stifled and excluded; and to learn to theories for how to put into practice the reality that expertise is not defined by the titles or degrees after one’s name, but by the unique gifts and skills that people bring to bear to make the world better.

Second Semester: The second semester would have a smaller class size of about ten. It provides the student with an opportunity to engage with community partners in a project that is of mutual benefit to the student and the community. It provides students with 1. Experience in inter-disciplinary and collaborative group work that is central to public health, and that makes public health exciting and fruitful. 2. An opportunity to synthesize classroom knowledge and personal experience to explore in depth a specific public health disparity in a local community/ 3. A chance to explore ways that active involvement to address a public health issue can have an impact on health disparities; and begin to develop personal long-term strategies for creating social change for health.

Prerequisites: Students who take the course should demonstrate potential to be curious about, to understand, and to want to actively improve the health of communities; and to partner with multiple, diverse people from all walks of life.

Principles: Some of the underlying principles of the course are the following:

1. Involvement of community partners in a variety of forms is integral to all aspects of the course, at every stage.
2. The commitment of the course faculty is long-term. It extends beyond one academic year to a series of actions and activities, such as summer internships and annual orientations, to ensure continuity of the commitment to a sustained partnership between the school(s) and the local communities.
3. While one faculty member would run the course as a whole and assume chief responsibility for mentoring and teaching, drawing upon and involving other faculty, such as CHS, from the Five Colleges is an important part of the overall approach to the course.
4. Ongoing evaluation and learning lessons are used to refine, revise, and strengthen the course and the partnerships that develop.

This course seeks to offer a small-scale model for the application of community-based learning within the context of liberal arts education in public health. It seeks to unite students with community stakeholders and serve as a catalyst for essential but previously unlikely partnerships. Its ultimate purpose is to harness the ideals of a liberal arts education to the challenge of enabling people to discover common ground for new action to improve the conditions that influence the health of people and populations and reduce the inequities among them. Such action can lay the foundation for leadership needed to bring dignity, hope, and equity to people. We seek to move away from systems that thrive on pathology, medical diagnosis, and risk reduction. Instead, we envision systems and policies that derive their power from resilience, trust, respect of culture and language, and community. Our species has a remarkable capacity for healing and cooperating for the common good. The purpose of the course is to mobilize that capacity. The course will be a learning greenhouse to support educational methods that engage communities and inspire students to practice effective forms of social action. In so doing, the course can contribute to bringing up a new generation of leaders with lifelong tools to actualize their ideals.

Examples of course content:
1. Teaching, mentoring, advising, dialogue, organizing, advocating, and experience to learn and practice public health in the community.
2. Synthesizing research on social determinants of health, resilience, traumatic childhood experiences, racism, chronic stress, language, and conditions for productive dialogue that will have a significant impact on future public health practice.
3. Translating this research into humane public health practice to improve the health of women and children and families, 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.

Health Disparities Course Syllabus

2009-12-19T11:21:00.004-05:00

Here is the syllabus, except for individual class assignments, for the course on Health Disparities (Natural Science 209) that Dr. Richard Aronson, MD, MPH, taught at Hampshire College in the fall of 2009:

Social injustice and inequality create conditions that lead to unconscionable health disparities according to race, ethnicity, childhood experiences, gender, income, nationality, and many other factors. How can it be, for example, that while infant mortality in the United States has declined during the past century, the rate at which black babies die is at more than twice the rate of whites? How can it be that roughly 500,000 women in the world die each year of largely preventable causes related to pregnancy and birth? How can it be that in the same city, the average life expectancy for people living in one neighborhood is 10 years less than for those living in another neighborhood just a few miles apart?

This course explores the multi-faceted origins of selected health disparities. It highlights the real potential, vital importance, and urgent need for solutions: health policies, systems, and programs that are humane, culturally respectful, and effective. How do we define health disparities in a public health context? How do such disparities occur and persist across generations? What is the "life course perspective" for maternal and child health? Specifically, how does chronic stress experienced by women of color in the U.S. make them more likely to give birth to premature and low weight babies? And how are traumatic childhood experiences associated with earlier and more severe chronic diseases in adulthood? We will explore research related to these questions, and then consider specific promising disparity-based practices in the U.S.

We critically examine how such practices tend to: 1) Draw on the resilience of individuals, families, and communities; 2) Tap into the potential for social capital to enrich physical, mental, and spiritual health; 3) Foster collaborative action among multiple stakeholders, including the communities directly affected, to trust each other and unite as equal partners; and 4) Emphasize learning how culture and language influence health, and how the need to respect culture and to communicate clearly is essential to effective and humane programs, policies, and systems. Throughout the course, we focus on bringing the voices of people who have experienced disparities into our dialogue. The professor is a public health pediatrician with 30 years of hands-on practical leadership experience in. The course will continuously examine how to translate theory into practice.

Purpose: To inform and inspire students interested in public health from a social justice context to engage in learning and creating conditions under which all people have the full equal opportunity to thrive in body, mind, and spirit.
Background: Public health faces local and global challenges that require a multi-faceted inter-disciplinary approach that addresses underlying root causes of social injustice in order to create a more humane and equitable world for all people. To make progress, we need broad inclusive participation of many stakeholders, which requires new forms of leadership. This course provides students with a foundation to learn and practice such leadership. We draw on research that shows 1) How various forms of inequality, injustice, chronic stress, and trauma influence health and create unconscionable public health disparities, 2) How resilience and other positive resources, such as the use of clear humane language, provide the potential to create health equity, and 3) How inclusive dialogue, collaborative action, and cultural and linguistic competence form the foundation for the new leadership. Through class lectures and dialogue, individual meetings, four papers, an oral presentation, a variety of readings and DVDs, and community engagement, students explore the translation of this research into humane practice and public policy. Opportunities are available for students who seek to learn and practice such leadership. Also, the professor is available to mentor those who have or are exploring a passion for public health and public service as a profession, and support them with tools to express their idealism in action. Our model of choice for this work is Future Search (www.futuresearch.net ), a unique planning process that has been used with success worldwide for 25 years to stimulate action on complex social issues.

This course seeks to equip students with information and tools to unite stakeholders and serve as a catalyst for essential but previously unlikely partnerships. Our intention is to enable people to discover common ground for action that they did not realize they shared. Such discovery can lay the foundation for leadership needed to bring dignity, hope, and equity to women, children, and families. The focus of the course is to move away from systems that primarily thrive on pathology, medical diagnosis, and risk reduction. Instead, we envision systems and policies that derive their power from resilience, trust, respect of culture and language, and community. Our species has a remarkable capacity for healing and cooperating for the common good. The purpose of the course, in its small way, is to mobilize that capacity among interested students. The larger goal here is to equip a new generation of leaders with lifelong tools to actualize their ideals.

Course Objectives
1. To understand public health disparities within a social justice framework.
2. To understand the multi-faceted and deeply rooted origins of health disparities.
3. To explore how chronic stress contributes to health disparities.
4. To examine the impact of adverse and traumatic childhood experiences on adult health.
5. To examine public health policy and practice to address health disparities.
6. To understand how policy and practices rooted in resilience, cultural and linguistic competence, and collaborative action can create health equity locally and globally.
7. To acquire practical experience in applying these ideas in communities.

Classes

Part I Introduction and Overview (Week 1)

What is public health, and how does the challenge of addressing health disparities central to public health?
What is maternal and child health?
What is a health disparity?
What is health equity?
What are the major factors that contribute to health disparities?

Part II Public Health and Social Justice (Week 1)

How are social justice and public health inter-connected?

Part III Health Disparities: Origins, models, examples (Weeks 2-6)

New research and increased focus on earlier research in the natural and social sciences are giving us a deeper knowledge of the conditions that give rise to health disparities. This section of the course introduces and explores some of the areas of such research:

A. Stress, Biology, and the Life Course Perspective: The rationale for the life course perspective lies in the concept of allostasis, which refers to the body’s ability to maintain stability through change. According to this model, in the face of chronic stress, including that of racism starting in childhood, the body loses its natural ability for self-regulation. The biological pathways (hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis) that enable the body to reset itself and maintain allostasis in response to stress become accelerated. This acceleration may shut down the endocrine feedback system that enables cortisol levels to return to normal after successful adaptation to a stressful event. Chronically high levels of cortisol suppress immune function, making women, for example, more vulnerable to a series of events during pregnancy that are precursors to preterm birth and low birth weight. Further, the continued and often exacerbated stresses that occur during pregnancy itself may program the fetus in a similar way, setting up a compromised ability to self-regulate throughout the life span. The inequitable distribution of conditions and resources in which people can be healthy, such as education, housing, and economic well being, are multiplied by the effects of discrimination. Among the take-home lessons from the life course perspective is the concept that high quality health and medical care and healthy individual behaviors are necessary but not sufficient to reduce health disparities.

B. Racism: The interaction of stress and biology has been researched and studied, and it is particularly important to consider the role of racism as a stressor. However, the historical misuse of biology, medicine genetics, and social sciences has unfairly pathologized communities of color. It has led to a false dichotomization that fails to take into account the full strengths and capacity of such communities to survive, heal, and thrive. Racism can be conceived of as occurring at different levels. Personally-mediated racism is defined as prejudice or discrimination rooted in often unconscious stereotypes of different groups of people. For example, studies demonstrate how health care providers apply differential assumptions or attitudes about others according to their race. As a result, a woman may experience feelings of being dismissed, not listened to, and not treated with respect, which may have an impact on her decision to present for care in the future. The health care system may support such biases, whether unconsciously and unintentionally, through policies and other institutional practices. Researchers have concluded that environment, not genetics, is the primary factor in what has become unequivocal, i.e. that race has an independent association with LBW and infant mortality.

C. The Adverse Child Experiences (ACE) Study: Conducted from a database of 17,337 adult enrollees in the Kaiser Permanente Health Plan in California, began to publish its research in 1998. Stated simply, it uses a retrospective design that shows a strong association between 10 adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and major risk factors for chronic diseases, both physical and emotional, in adulthood. The 10 ACEs include several categories of child abuse and neglect, and home environmental conditions related to substance abuse, untreated mental illness such as maternal depression, exposure to violence, incarceration, and loss of one parent. The researchers found that ACEs are widely prevalent and transcend social, economic and racial and ethnic boundaries. Further, a recent paper, “The Enduring Effects of Abuse and Related Adverse Experiences in Childhood”, reviews data to support the concept that the mechanisms for biological impairment in brain and endocrine function among children with multiple ACES are comparable to the mechanisms from the life course perspective studies.

D. Social Capital: A growing body of research on the concept of social capital and connectedness shows that the extent to which we feel meaningfully connected to each other and to our communities is a powerful determinant of health status. Social capital encourages formal and informal social support networks, civic engagement, and a heightened sense of community. It refers to the processes between people that establish networks, norms, and social trust, and facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit. Such connections enrich our physical and emotional health, and provide a deep well of protection from stresses and adversity. These connections have been shown through numerous studies to strengthen the immune system. A study by Haggerty more than 40 years ago showed that among a group of children harboring the Streptococcal bacillus in their throats, those living in more stressful households were more likely to become symptomatic. Ron David, a member of the Joint Center Health Policy Institute’s National Commission on Infant mortality, has further elaborated on this concept of social connectedness by hypothesizing that “relationships are primary; all else is derivative.”

E. Resilience: Resilience refers to the ability to bounce back from adverse experiences and to avoid their long-term negative effects; the power of people to recover, heal, grow, and succeed in the midst of stress, often overwhelming in nature. Studies of concentration camp survivors, of people with special health needs, and of children in violent unsafe environments demonstrate the potential for human beings to bounce back from severe hardship and stress. For example, it has been shown that resilient children and youth are highly flexible and adaptive and skillful as planners and problem solvers . They also tend to possess an internal sense of power and purpose, and have an engaging social temperament. Resilient families support individual children through the presence of an enduring and loving relationship with at least one adult; hold high and clear expectations for the child and confidence that she can do it; and encourage and expect children to feel that they are valued participants. Schools that promote resilience have a wide array of resources to affirm the unique learning style and strength of students; tap into their imagination and creativity; involve students in real life experience; strengthen their decision-making skills; and provide teachers who affirm and inspire that spark in a student and tell her again and again, “You can do this”. Resilience promoting communities are rich in social support networks and have active and vibrant associations and organizations. A resilience promoting community has a clear vision for its children and youth and is equipped with the resources essential to support healthy growth and development – health care, child care, parent education, home visitation, family resource centers, job training, employment, and housing.

F. Conditions for Productive Dialogue and Action: Research in the social sciences has resulted in leadership and planning tools that are more likely to bring out the cooperative and collaborative action that is essential to eliminating birth outcome disparities. For example, synthesizing 80 years of social sciences research, Weisbord and Janoff identified four principles that foster the high level of collaboration needed for systems change on complex and tenacious problems such as birth outcome disparities, and especially in communities where racial and other tensions are high. The four principles are: 1) Get the “whole system” in the room—those with authority, resources, expertise, information, and need—all in the same conversation. 2) Explore the whole before seeking to fix any part; 3) Put common ground and future action front and center; and 4) Set up meetings so people can do the work for themselves. These broad principles may help in thinking through further the potential methods by which joint action in Wisconsin can be encouraged effectively, with the obvious caution that this is easily recognized as a need and not so easily enacted in practice for many reasons.

Part IV Principles for Creating Health Equity (Weeks 7-10)

As the foundation for public policy to reduce health disparities, it is important to explore some underlying characteristics that have shown promise in successful efforts to create equity. We will examine the following set of assumptions and practices and consider how they can be incorporated into the various dimensions of work to reduce disparities, whether it is related to policies, systems, programs, and services; research; and teaching:
 Honor and respect the dignity of all people involved, and of their cultures
 Consider that everyone is an "expert" and honor all voices, especially those who have historically not been included in the design of the policies that affect them
 Include families and communities as equal partners from start to finish
 Use simple and clear, non-jargon, and non-bureaucratic language and communication
 Draw on resilience, strengths, and resources of all people involved (.
 Collect, follow, analyze, and use data in an honest, clear, and accurate way that is faithful to the core functions of public health and that serves as the foundation for action
 Build and sustain public and political will for action.
 Stay faithful to the purpose of public health, which is not only to end disparities but also to create equity for all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, income, gender, sexual orientation, physical, emotional, and cognitive ability religion, and nationality
 Be non-judgmental, and realize that behind every statistic, every risk factor, every death is a real human being, with all the complexity, magnificence, and potential for good that is in each of us.

Part V Student Presentations, Group Projects, and Discussions

Resource Materials

Readings will include a variety of journal articles, and selected excerpts from the following books.

Weisbord M, Janoff S. Future Search: An Action Guide to Finding Common Ground in Organizations and Communities. Berrett-Koehler Publishers: San Francisco, 2000.

Weisbord Marvin. Productive Workplaces Revisited: Dignity, Meaning, and Community in the 21st century. Berrett Koehler Publishers: San Francisco, 2004.

Weisbord M and Janoff S. Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There: Ten Principles for Leading Meetings that Matter. Berrett Koehler: San Francisco, 2007.

Berkman, Lisa.F. and Kawachi Ichiro. (eds). Social Epidemiology, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick: A four-hour documentary exploring racial and socioeconomic inequities in health. California Newsreel, 2008. (DVD)

Garinger-Monsen Maren, and Haslett, Julia. Worlds Apart: A Four-Part Series on Cross-Cultural Healthcare. Boston: Fanlight Productions, 2003 (DVD)
Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care Institute of Medicine. National Academies Press, 2003.
Handbook of resilience in children Sam Goldstein and Robert B Brooks (eds) . New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum, 2005.
GGarbarino James: Children and the Dark Side of Human Experience. Springer-Verlag: New York, 2008.

LeLevy Barry S. and Sidel Victor W. (eds) Social Injustice and Public Health New York: Oxford University Press, Inc. Paperback Edition, 2009.

From Neurons to Neighborhoods:: The Science of Early Childhood Development. Institute of Medicine: National Academies Press, 2000.
Block Peter. Community: The Structure of Belonging. Berrett Kohler: San Francisco, 2008.
Lu MC, Halfon N. Racial and ethnic disparities in birth outcomes: a life-course perspective Matern Child Health J. 2003 Mar;7(1):13-30.
Kotelchuck M. Building on a life-course perspective in maternal and child health. Matern Child Health J. 2003 Mar;7(1):5-11.
Geronimus AT. Black/white differences in the relationship of maternal age to birthweight: a population-based test of the weathering hypothesis. Soc Sci Med 1996;42:589-97.
Lu MC, Kotelchuck M, Hogan V, Jones L, Jones C, Halfon N. Closing the Black-White gap in birth outcomes: A life-course approach. Accepted for publication in Ethnicity and Disease 2009.
Lu MC, Kotelchuck M, Culhane JF, Hobel CJ, Klerman LV, Thorp JM Jr. Preconception Care Between Pregnancies: The Content of Internatal Care. Matern Child Health J. 2006 Sep;10(Supplement 7):107-122.

Halfon N, DuPlessis H, Inkelas M. Transforming the U.S. child health system. Health Aff (Millwood). 2007 Mar-Apr;26(2):315-30.

Raphael D (2002). Social Justice is Good for Our Hearts: Why Societal Factors – Not Lifestyles – are Major Causes of Heart Disease in Canada and Elsewhere. Toronto: CSJ Foundation for Research and Education. Available free via www.socialjustice.org.
World Health Organization (WHO), Commission on Social Determinants of Health (2008). Closing the Gap in a Generation: Health Equity Through Action on the Social Determinants of Health. On line at WHO Web Site.
Kristenson M et al. (2004). Psychobiological Mechanisms of Socioeconomic Differences in Health. Social Science & Medicine. 58: 1511-1522.

Syme SL. (2005). Historical Perspective: The social determinants of disease – some roots of the movement. Epidemiologic Perspectives & Innovations. 2:2

Beauchamp DE. Public Health as Social Justice. (RH) Chapter 10. 267-284.

Felitti VJ, Anda RF, Nordenberg D, Williamson DF, Spitz AM, Edwards V, Koss MP & Marks JS. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults. The ACE Study. American Journal Preventive Medicine. 14:4, 245-258.

Course Requirements:

1. October 1, October 22, November 12: 3-5 page paper.
2. December 10: Term paper: 10 page paper.
3. Class attendance (Three unexcused absences will result in no evaluation)
4. Class assignments
5. Ethical scholarship
6. Ground rules

.

Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH
Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Health
Richard A. Aronson, adjunct assistant professor of public health, received his B.A. from Amherst College, his M.D. from the University of Rochester School of Medicine, and his M.P.H. from the University of North Carolina School of Public Health in Maternal and Child Health (MCH). He has a wide range of leadership experience and community involvement in public health at the local, state, and national levels. He has served as the State MCH Medical Director in Vermont, Wisconsin, and Maine.

As a pediatrician, teacher, mentor, and maternal and child health leader, he seeks to put into practice the highest ideals of public health, public service, and medicine. His work focuses on social justice as the foundation for public health and on research and action to end health disparities and inequalities locally and globally.
His leadership has contributed to public policy that frames public health within an ecologic context that is rooted in family and community empowerment, resilience, social connections, cultural and linguistic competence, physical and emotional safety, and human rights. His focus on racial and ethnic disparities in infant mortality, child abuse prevention, and the impact of childhood experiences on adult health has helped unite multiple diverse stakeholders to discover common ground and improve health outcomes. He has concentrated his recent work on teaching, mentoring, and inspiring students who are interested and excited about public health as a uniquely inter-disciplinary field of study and community engagement. In 2009, he helped a group of Five-College students form a Public Health Collaborative at Amherst College.
His honors include the John C. MacQueen Lecture Award of the Association of MCH Programs (2004), the Ray Helfer MD Award from the Children’s Trust and Prevention Funds and American Academy of Pediatrics (2007), the Sydney S. Chipman Award of the University of North Carolina School of Public Health (1995), and the Wisconsin Outstanding Pediatrician of the Year (1999).

Culture and Language in Public Health Course

2009-12-19T11:15:00.005-05:00

Following on the Health Disparities course at Hampshire College that Richard Aronson, MD, MPH, taught in the fall of 2009, he will offer a second course for the spring 2010 term that focuses on Culture and Language in Public Health. Here is the course description:

Cultural and linguistic competence in public health doesn’t mean being an authority on the values and beliefs of every culture. It does mean holding deep respect for cultural and language diversity; developing awareness of the ways in which culture and language shape our views of health and healing; and learning how every encounter in public health and health care is cross-cultural in nature. We explore how personal, organizational, and systemic bias contributes to health disparities; and how such understanding provides opportunities for humanizing health policy and creating health equity. The course examines cultural and linguistic conflicts that arise in efforts to improve the health of people and communities, and assesses the extent to which specific programs and policies make a lasting impact on health equity.

Health Disparities Course Hampshire College Fall 2009

2009-07-31T12:31:00.005-04:00

By Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH: For a long time now, I have been wanting to focus my full energy on teaching, mentoring, and being in dialogue with college level students to inspire them to pursue public health as a noble profession…a profession that: 1. Forms its foundation in the quest for social justice. 2. Honors the dignity of all people and communities throughout the world, and their languages and cultures and religions. 3. Unites multiple stakeholders for collaborative action. 4. Combines mind, body, and spirit in its vision of health. 5. Integrates and applies the internal and external dimensions of healing. 6. Focuses on common ground and celebrates diversity. 7. Represents an exquisitely inter-disciplinary field of study that combines the natural and social sciences, and humanities. 8. Fosters a legacy of hope. To that end, I am honored to have the opportunity to teach a course this fall at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. The title of the course is “Health Disparities”, and it will be a seminar-type course for roughly 25 students, meeting twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays 2 – 3:20 pm Eastern Time USA). Students from the other colleges in the Five-College Area (Amherst, Smith, Mount Holyoke, and the University of Massachusetts) will be able to enroll. The course will be part of a Five-College Inter-Disciplinary Program called Culture, Health, and Science. I have put the course description below. I welcome suggestions for any reference materials (articles, books, videos, stories, poems, web sites, works of art, community organizations, etc.) that I could include in the syllabus or in the classes themselves or case examples of best practices. Thank you. I'm at raronson@myfairpoint.net. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you!

Health Disparities Course Description
Fall 2009
Hampshire College Course 209 School of Natural Science
Room 333, Cole Science Center, 2-3:20 pm, Tuesdays and Thursdays
Professor: Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH

Social injustice and inequality create conditions that lead to unconscionable health disparities according to race, ethnicity, gender, childhood experiences, and many other factors. An example is the infant mortality gap in the United States, where black babies die at more than twice the rate of whites. This course explores the origins of selected health disparities and highlights promising community-based efforts to address them. How do we define health disparities in a public health context? How do such disparities occur and persist across generations? What is the "life course perspective" for maternal and child health? Specifically, how does chronic stress experienced by women of color in the U.S. make them more likely to give birth to premature and low weight babies? And how are traumatic childhood experiences associated with earlier and more severe chronic diseases in adulthood? We will explore research related to these questions, and then consider specific promising community-based practices. We will critically examine how such practices: 1) Draw on the resilience of individuals, families, and communities; 2) Tap into the potential for social capital to enrich physical, mental, and spiritual health; 3) Foster collaborative action among multiple stakeholders, including the communities directly affected, to trust each other and unite as equal partners; and 4) Emphasize learning how culture and language influence health, and how the need to respect culture and to communicate clearly is essential to effective and humane programs, policies, and systems. Throughout the course, we will seek, in various ways, to include the voices of people and communities who have experienced disparities into our dialogue.

Amherst Public Health Collaborative May 2009

2009-05-18T16:34:00.005-04:00

By Richard Aronson

As the academic year winds down, it's time to celebrate the creation of the Amherst College Public Health Collaborative and to honor the graduating seniors who have played a leadership role in its founding and initial events: Jodie Simms, Annah Kuriakose, Romain Cames, Surya Kundu, and Katerina Byanova. Also, many thanks to the Amherst Career Center, the Center for Community Engagement, the Five-College Culture, Health, and Science Program, the University of Massachusetts Amherst Public Health Club, Tapestry Health, Holyoke Health Center, Teen Clinic at Wm. J. Dean Technical High School, Big Brothers Big Sisters Hampshire County, Providence Prenatal and Women's Health Center in Holyoke, and many others. We are delighted that Jamie Cohen '11, Keemi Ereme '11, Lili Ferguson '10, Ethan Balgley '12, and Sarah Schear '12 have already taken on a leadership role for the transition to next year.

Here is the Mission Statement of the Collaborative:
The Amherst College Public Health Collaborative (ACPHC) brings together college students, faculty, staff, alumni, community partners and health care providers in order to engage in and promote issues of public health and social justice in the Pioneer Valley. ACPHC seeks to create long-term partnerships between community organizations and students, create a resource network for students interested in the field and highlight the importance of public health in the wider community. By including all relevant stakeholders, ACPHC aims to positively affect the health of the people living in the Pioneer valley, as well as to deepen the relationships between college students and local community by meaningfully engaging students in community health projects and by providing a means for students to apply classroom knowledge to the world they live in.

Culture and Language Workshops for Maine WIC

2009-05-07T11:18:00.004-04:00

Richard Aronson and Lisa Sockabasin, Minority Health Director for Maine, will present two all-day workshops in June and September for staff of the Women, Infants, and Children Supplemental Nutrition Program (WIC). This is part of a three-year federal grant from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to strengthen the capacity of WIC to deliver humane services and policies that demonstrate cultural and linguistic competence and show respect and honor for the dignity of all WIC children and families. We view this as an exciting new step to infusing research on racial and ethnic MCH disparities (James Collins, Michael Lu, others) into our workshops on cultural and linguistic competence. It will also incorporate the work that Aronson and Alyssa Pagano have done this year on the discourse of public health. Here is an overview of the workshops:

Understanding the Impact of Culture, Language, and Discrimination on WIC in Maine and Equipping WIC Providers with Tools to Improve Services to Families

June 12 (Augusta) and 30 (Bangor), September 21 (Augusta) and 30 (Bangor), 2009

Purpose: To strengthen the capacity of Maine WIC Agencies to provide leadership that honors and respects culture and language in: 1) Direct services to families; 2) The organization as a whole; and 3) The improvement of health outcomes and reduction of health inequalities in the WIC population.
Learning Objectives and Agenda:
Day One
1. Increase participant understanding of personal and organizational bias and prejudice, and how it may affect the relationship between the WIC agency and the community, and between WIC providers and the families who receive WIC services.
2. Increase understanding of how to address such bias and prejudice in order to better understand and respect each other and the families who receive WIC services.
3. Define culture and language.
4. Increase understanding of how culture and language affect the provider-family relationship and the extent to which a WIC agency is able to improve the health of the WIC population it serves.
5. Increase knowledge of how severe traumatic events and chronic stress affect birth outcomes and contribute to maternal and child health disparities.
Day Two
1. Increase knowledge of how laws and public policy, including the National Standards on Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services, can help WIC agencies strengthen their culture and language related services to families.
2. Identify essential elements to increase cultural and language respect in the WIC provider-family relationship, and develop a preliminary plan to put those elements into action.
3. Learn why organizational self-assessment is important, identify essential components of such an assessment, and develop a preliminary plan to carry out such an assessment.
4. Explore how to integrate all of the above into the skill sets and leadership of Maine WIC Agencies and the goal of improving the health of the WIC population, including all aspects of its policies, procedures, administration and VENA implementation plans.
Facilitators and Presenters: Richard Aronson and Lisa Sockabasin
Method: The sessions will consist of a combination of presentations, and small and large group activities and dialogue, using Future Search principles.

A Better Chance and Mentoring Workshops at Amherst

2009-04-21T17:04:00.004-04:00

Please note the two upcoming workshops at the Amherst College Reunion on May 29 and 30, 2009:

Amherst College Alumni Reunion 2009 Saturday, May 30, 2009, 2:30 - 3:20 p-m

The Class of 1969 Project: A New Role for Alumni to Promote "Lives of Consequence"

This project, started in 2006 by Justin Grimes '69, organizes opportunities for Amherst alumni to inspire and equip students and young alumni with tools to make a difference in the world. "Through their hard work, Class of 1969 alumni, in partnership with students, faculty, CCE, Career Center, other graduates, and community partners have brought a number of fantastic programs to campus - including a program of inter-faith, inter-generational dialogue and an inspired colloquium that resulted in the formation of a student-led public health collaborative," wrote an '08 graduate. Working with established departments at the College, the project is opening doors for alumni to "give" to the College through involvement with students. An innovative program in Group Dialogue and Individual Mentoring for students interested in public health and service have also contributed to this redefinition of the alumni role in student life. Facilitated by Richard Aronson '69, we will hear the story of the project though the voices of undergraduates and young alumni. Presented by the Class of 1969.
Pruyne Lecture Hall (Room 115), Fayerweather Panelists: Jodie Simms, Joshua Stanton, Molly Mead, Christopher Dole

Friday, May 29, 2009 2 pm
Celebration of the Amherst ABC Program on its 40th Anniversary, and on the role of the Class of 1969, other alumni, and the College as a Whole in this Extraordinary Program
Facilitator: Richard A. Aronson ’69
Participants: A panel of Amherst College Class of 1969 alumni, Amherst College alumni who were students in the Amherst ABC (A Better Chance) Program (http://www.amherstabetterchance.org/), and Amherst ABC Board Members and others involved in the program throughout its history. Includes Michael Hawkins (Amherst ABC Board President), Frank Anderson (Invited - Initial Amherst ABC Board President),Jay Silverman ’69, Fred Hoxie ‘69, Henry Francis '71 (Invited)

The Amherst ABC Program was founded 40 years ago. In its senior year, the Class of 1969 decided to contribute to the founding of Amherst ABC by choosing to divert its yearbook-dedicated funds to ABC. The Class of 1969 is the only class in modern Amherst history without a year book. This workshop will explore: 1) The events leading to the Class of 1969’s decision, the summer of 1969 ABC orientation on the Amherst Campus, and reflections 40 years later. 2) The need for programs such as Amherst ABC 40 years ago, compared with today. 3) Opportunities for Amherst College and its alumni and students to make transformative changes in the community (in this case focusing on racial inequity and educational opportunity for low income youth of color) in Amherst and beyond. 4) The fundamental importance of philanthropy and non-profits in American society, and grassroots organizing, in the context of Amherst ABC as an example. The dialogue will be followed by a reception at the ABC House.

Amherst, AIDS, Activism: Launch Event Public Health Collaborative

2009-04-06T16:32:00.004-04:00

By Jodie Simms, Amherst '09

Hello Members of the Amherst College Public Health Collaborative, including all who want to join!

This is to let you all know about the official launch event for the Amherst College Public Health Collaborative, which will be happening this Friday, April 10th, 2009, at 7:30 in the Cole Assembly Room, Converse Hall, at Amherst College. The title of the event is AIDS, Amherst, and Activism. The event is a way to excite students about the importance of public health, inform them about the developments in the AIDS field, and establish the collaborative as a resource on campus for students interested in public health. After a brief introduction of the Collaborative, we will be hearing from leading infectious disease specialists, Dr. Bruce Walker and Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, about their work addressing the global AIDS epidemic in South Africa with special regard to grassroots health care initiatives and community involvement and activism. Following the talk, there will be a discussion led by Dr. Walker, Dr. Ojikutu, and members of the Collaborative about public health in the community context and more specifically about how the Collaborative can be an effective grassroots initiative. Thanks to Jamie Cohen '11 for organizing this!

Somalian Community Health in Lewiston, Maine

2009-03-31T14:51:00.004-04:00

Working with an extraordinary community organization in Lewiston, Maine, United Somali Women of Maine, in coordination with Lisa Sockabasin at the Maine state public health department and Rachel Salloway , a senior at Bates College, we are honored to be part of a community-based project to improve the health of the Somalian community in Maine. While the project focuses on immunizations, it has a broader context of listening to and learning from the voices and stories of Somalian women in Lewiston. In open dialogue, they are sharing their health experiences in Maine, including their own perceptions of illness, the extent to which they are honored and respected in their health care, and suggestions for systems wide improvement.

The Future of Home Births in the United States

2009-03-30T07:48:00.010-04:00

On March 21-22, 2009, we co-faciitated with Future Search Network Co-Director Sandra Janoff a planning meeting for a Future Search Conference on the future of home births in the United States. Fifteen people, representing physicians, nurses, midwives, and mothers, gathered at the University of California at San Francisco Obstetrics-Gynecology Department for the start of a dialogue to constructively listen to each other's perspectives and discover common ground on this issue. Leslie Cragin, Director of Midwifery at UCSF and Saraswathi Vedam, Amherst College graduate and 2008 Honorary Degree recipient, took the lead in bringing this diverse group together.

Cultural Competence Workshops

2009-03-30T07:43:00.005-04:00

We continue to design and offer innovative approaches to the learning and experience of cultural and linguistic competence. With Lisa Sockabasin, we will give four in-depth highly interactive workshops to the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) Program in Maine; and we are in the midst of a series of workshops with an extraordinary group of Maine youth leaders with disabilities, in collaboration with Maine Support Network and co-facilitation by Mallory Cyr.

The Language of Public Health

2009-03-30T07:39:00.004-04:00

We are working this semester with Alyssa Pagano, an English Major at Bates College, to write the first of a series of papers on the need to change the language of public health so that it is less bureaucratic jargon, has fewer acronyms, uses fewer violence related metaphors, and generally is more humane and inclusive of multiple and diverse stakeholders. Our goal is to humanize the language of public health so that it more accurately reflects and expresses the fundamental purpose and underlying ideals of our noble profession.

Amherst Public Health Collaborative Update

2009-03-30T07:25:00.006-04:00

A group of Amherst and University of Massachusetts students gathered on February 23, 2009, to follow up on the January 24 all-day event that marked the foundation of the Amherst Public Health Collaborative. Since then, students have created a mission statement (see below), a blog site (http://aphcollaborative.blogspot.com/), a launch event on April 10 7:30-9:00 pm ("AIDS, Amherst, and Activism" with guest speaker Dr. Bruce Walker, at Converse Hall at Amherst College. Further, there is a great interest in expanding the already flourishing mentoring program. I want to express my gratitude to all who have taken the initiative to be part of this exciting model for college students to translate their knowledge and ideals into leadership and action.

Mission Statement

"The Amherst College Public Health Collaborative (ACPHC) brings together college students, faculty, staff, alumni, community partners and health care providers in order to engage in and promote issues of public health and social justice in the Pioneer Valley. ACPHC seeks to create long-term partnerships between community organizations and students, create a resource network for students interested in the field and highlight the importance of public health in the wider community. By including all relevant stakeholders, ACPHC aims to positively affect the health of the people living in the Pioneer valley, as well as to deepen the relationships between college students and local community by meaningfully engaging students in community health projects and by providing a means for students to apply classroom knowledge to the world they live in."

Public Health Collaborative Meeting at Amherst College

2009-01-30T07:58:00.002-05:00

On Saturday, January 24, 2009, we had an amazing and powerful all-day gathering at Amherst College (Amherst, Massachusetts, USA) of 50 people that included Amherst College (and several University of Massachusetts) students, faculty and staff, alums, and community partners. Using the model of Future Search (www.futuresearch.org), we had an inspired dynamic action-oriented conversation and dialogue about public health that resulted in the formation of a new public health collaborative at Amherst that, while having its own unique identity, will at the same time join with a currently existing undergraduate group at the University of Massachusetts. The purpose of the collaborative is to establish a long-term presence of public health on the Amherst campus. It will have community engagement and partnerships (existing and new) at its core, promote opportunities in a variety of settings for students to learn about and practice public health and the reduction of health disparities (including those opportunities that already exist compiled in a data base), serve as a catalyst for student activism and leadership for campus-based and community wide public health issues, and provide multiple opportunities for in-depth mentoring for those who want to pursue public health after college. The underlying philosophy is that public health is, in an inter-disciplinary way, a legitimate academic subject for study at the undergraduate level, and that public health is a noble and highly diverse profession that is rooted in the pursuit of social justice, equity, peace, cultural respect, and healing as the foundation for creating conditions for people and communities and society to have the full equal opportunity to thrive in mind, body, and spirit. I am so excited about this!
A planning group of six people that included three students – Jodie Simms ‘09, Annah Kuriakose ‘09, Lili Ferguson ‘10-, one faculty (Prof. Chris Dole), and a facilitator, Alice Leibowitz) did a stellar job in clarifying the purpose of the day, reaching out to multiple stakeholders, and applying the Future Search model. Thanks also go to Documenter Danielle Griffin ’09 and our sponsors: Center for Community Engagement, Career Center, Dean of the Faculty, Dean of Student Affairs, Class of 1969 Project, and Humane Worlds Center for Maternal and Child Health. By all accounts, the gathering was unique and innovative and refreshingly inter-generational, building on the resources and strengths that already exist on the Amherst and University of Massachusetts campuses (we had hoped to involve all Five College in the area, but that will happen later). For many students, it gave them a much stronger sense of what public health is all about and a commitment to become involved in the new collaborative. For alums, it provided a new vehicle for them to become engaged in campus life and inspire students to believe more fully in their idealism and passion for public service. For community partners, it demonstrated that we were serious in involving them from the start as truly equal partners whose participation in a mutually beneficial way is absolutely essential to the success of this effort. More information about the event itself will be forthcoming.

Dick Aronson '69

Humane Worlds Center Student Opportunities 2009

2009-01-06T11:35:00.005-05:00

Humane Worlds Center in Action January 2009

We are pleased to announce that we offer an array of exciting opportunities for students at all levels (undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate) to become involved in the Humane Worlds Center! At the end of each section, see “Student Role”. Get in touch with us (207 215 7317 or raronson@verizon.net) if you'd like to join : as an elective, internship, independent study, or other way.

ENDING RACIAL AND ETHNIC INEQUALITIES IN INFANT MORTALITY WITH A FOCUS ON ADDRESSING RACISM

There is a large and unconscionable disparity in the rate at which African American and white babies die in the United States. In Wisconsin, black babies are four times more likely to die during their first year of life. To help address this, the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health hired the Center’s founder and director, Richard Aronson, M.D., M.P.H., to review the research and promising practices on birth outcome disparities, and make recommendations for a special initiative by the University. Read his report at http://wphf.med.wisc.edu/specialinitiative/index.php and a presentation that he gave at a Wingspread Conference held in May 2008, at http://wphf.med.wisc.edu/specialinitiative/wingspread.php.

Student Role: Join future efforts to create equity in birth outcomes across racial, ethnic, economic, social, and other boundaries.

INSPIRING UNIQUE INTERGENERATIONAL DIALOGUE ON PUBLIC HEALTH

Extraordinary intergenerational dialogue between young and old public health leaders took place at a unique Maternal and Child Health Leadership Retreat in July 2008 organized by the MCH Program at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health. (http://www.uic.edu/sph/mch/mch_leadership_conference.htm). A workshop given by Dr. Aronson and Sheri Johnson, “Practical Skills for MCH Leaders to Create Humane and Equitable Worlds”, and his presentation at the concluding session, “MCH Leadership Stories”, were instrumental in inspiring the dialogue.

Student Role: Be part of exciting future efforts to foster such dialogue in a variety of settings.

MENTORING AT AMHERST AND BEYOND!

Mentoring college students interested in public health is central to the purpose of the Humane Worlds Center. Such mentoring provides the seeds for a lifetime of leadership and service to make the world more just, a necessary prerequisite for people to be healthy.

The Amherst College Class of 1969 Project, started in 2006 by Justin Grimes (https://www.amherst.edu/alumni/classpages/1969/1969clpr) , has the purpose of inspiring students at Amherst and beyond to put their ideals into practice in careers of public service and leadership. As part of the Class of 1969 Project, Dr. Aronson organized a public service panel and mentoring that took place on March 28 and 29, 2008, at the Amherst College Career Center. Four Class of 1969 alumni, including Dr. Aronson, took part. Dr. Aronson mentored, in individual sessions following the panel, a dozen Amherst students interested in public health careers, and has continued contact with them. This was a successful and inspiring event. Below are words from some the students who took part in Dr. Aronson’s mentoring sessions:

“I am extremely grateful for all the advice and help that you gave me, both in terms of deciding what I wanted to do with my future, and also in terms of putting me in contact with people who could help me along the way. My final semester at Amherst I had so many ideas about what I was interested in and how I might want to make a difference, but I needed help in moving forward and focusing my dreams into something concrete. I believe that speaking with you helped me solidify my goals, and bring me to where I am right now. Based on our own discussions, and all the resources that you were able to offer me, I was inspired to contribute what little I could as well. I have been in contact with the Career Center and the Center for Community Engagement (about informing current Amherst students interested in public health about the organization that I'm working with, and the internship opportunities that we provide … Our mentoring session made a real difference in my life…”
“Looking back, I'm confident that the Amherst healthcare panel and meeting with you will be one of the most important events in my undergraduate life- if only because I finally learned that people have, and therefore CAN accomplish the goals we set for our communities when enough caring and open-minded people sit down together and try to work with one another.”
“Thank you so much for all your help, it has opened up so many new avenues for me.”
Jodie Simms and Annah Kuriakose, Amherst College Class of 2009, worked with Dr. Aronson in the fall of 2008 to organize an expanded panel, dialogue, and mentoring on public health as a career, that took place on December 5, 2008, at Amherst’s Career Center. Thirty five students turned out to join a dynamic conversation with five alumni and one faculty member.
Student Role: Be part of organizing similar efforts at Amherst and expanding it to other colleges in the United States and throughout the world.

PROMOTING RESILIENCE AND STRENGTHS IN THE FACE OF ADVERSE CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCES

Richard Aronson has given a number of presentations with Burt Richardson MD on the ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) Study, a powerful study that links traumatic childhood experiences – including various forms of abuse and neglect, domestic violence, mental illness, substance abuse in the household, incarcerated parent, and parental separation or loss – with adult health, metal and physical. The presentation also synthesizes the research of Emmy Werner and others on resilience, which offers a framework for preventing such traumatic experiences and promoting healing from them. Click here for slides.

Student Role: Help to prepare and give similar presentations, and lay the foundation for translating this research into action at the community and policy levels.

PLANNING A FUTURE SEARCH CONFERENCE ON HOME BIRTHS IN THE UNITED STATES

Humane Worlds Center is providing consultation to help organize and facilitate a Future Search Conference (www.futuresearch.net) on home births in the United States. It will be a multi-disciplinary consensus conference of key stakeholders around the provision of home birth services in the United States, to be convened by the University of California San Francisco and various organizations, including the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Association of Certified Nurse Midwives, Mothers and Midwives Associated, Lamaze International, Association of Women Hospital Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses, and the International Center for Traditional Childbirth. Further, it is hoped that public health practitioners and students, insurers, government agencies, health economists, medical anthropologists, state and national legislators, and women who have given birth will be among the eventual participants. The purpose of the conference is to start to bridge the "divide" between the medical and midwife communities over out-of-hospital births in the United States. Safety of birth in any setting is of utmost priority. Rights to choice and self-determination and culturally appropriate healing are also core values in American discourse that influence this issue. The purpose of this multidisciplinary conference of key stakeholders will be to craft a consensus policy and strategy on provision of home birth services. The project may also inform regulatory discourse, alternative funding structures, and the required modifications of curricula to prepare physicians and midwives in urban, rural and remote settings to provide maternity services across birth settings.
Student Role: Help to organize this conference and other Future Search Conferences, including possible conferences on MCH in South Africa and on maternal addiction in Maine.

A CONFERENCE TO INSPIRE UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS TO BRING PUBLIC HEALTH TO THEIR CAMPUS

Humane Worlds Center, including Jodie Simms, Annah Kuriakose, and Elizabeth Ferguson – has combined with the Amherst College Career Center, Center for Community Engagement, Class of 1969 Project, and Dean of the Faculty to hold an exciting event at Amherst on January 24, 2009:
Public Health and Amherst College:
Establishing a Public Health Collaborative Group on Campus that Has Community Partnerships as its Foundation
The goal is to establish an ongoing student-led public health presence on campus that has local community partnerships as its foundation. To that end, the January 24meeting will be devoted to an exploration of: What is public health? What are the key public health issues at Amherst College? How can Amherst students strengthen their capacity to work in true partnership with communities? What does it mean to work in a spirit of collaboration with families and communities? The January 24, 2009, meeting will focus on strategies, both at Amherst and beyond, needed to equip students with the capacity to:

1) Change how we think about public health to embrace every facet of our lives;
2) Create forums for dialogue that lead to effective action on local and global health inequities; and
3) Humanize and dignify the services and policies that relate to public health.

The web link on the Amherst web site is:

https://www.amherst.edu/campuslife/interterm/courses#Public%20Health

The planning for the January 24 event reflects a commitment to bring together a diverse group of stakeholders from Amherst, surrounding communities, and public health in a spirit of collaboration and respect for each other’s voice and unique contribution. We will use Future Search principles to guide our meeting.

Future Search (www.futuresearch.net) is a unique planning method, which has been used with notable success in many of the world’s cultures, and which I have had the privilege and opportunity to practice for the past 15 years in the world of public health. This approach unites people from diverse walks of life, gives them a voice in shaping humane systems, and lays the foundation for action to create healthy communities. What differentiates Future Search from most strategic planning methods are its four principles, synthesized by Weisbord and Janoff from 75 years of social science research:
 Get the “whole system” in the room—those with authority, resources, expertise, information, and need—all in the same conversation.
 Explore the whole before seeking to fix any part. Each person has a part of the whole. When all stakeholders have the chance to put in what they know, each has a picture that none had coming in, and they can plan together in a shared context.
 Put common ground and future action front and center. Problems and conflicts become information to be shared, not action items.
 Set up meetings so people can do the work for themselves. With self-management and personal responsibility encouraged, groups are capable of doing much more than they are usually asked to do.

To learn more about this event or to register for it, contact Jodie Simms, jsimms09@amherst.edu, or Annah Kuriakose, akuriakose09@amherst.edu

Student Role: Be involved in the follow-up to this conference and help organize other such conferences throughout the world.

PREVENTING CHILD ABUSE

Humane Worlds Center presented the keynote address at a Statewide Child Abuse Retreat for Oklahoma on November 5, 2008. The event was sponsored by the Oklahoma State Department of Health, Family Support and Prevention Service, and the Oklahoma State Interagency Child Abuse Prevention Task Force. Dr. Aronson focused his talk on how society has a vested interest in seeing that all children do well, that they thrive in mind, body, and spirit; and that we all benefit when children grow up to become healthy, productive, and compassionate adults. The interests of society as a whole – indeed, its very security – depend on the health and safety of our children. They ride on the extent to which we invest in children as our most precious resource and in parenthood and childrearing as the most important of all “occupations”. Dr. Aronson cited Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who said, “If you bungle raising your children, nothing else in life matters very much.” In September 2008, Dr. Aronson wrote a grant on the prevention of shaken baby syndrome in Maine.

Student Role: Be part of future efforts to prevent child abuse and neglect through workshops, grants, articles, and joining state, local, national, and international coalitions

MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP IN THE CARIBBEAN THROUGH THE AMERICAN PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION

On the weekend of October 25-26, 2008, Dr. Aronson once again participated, as core faculty, in the Maternal and Child Health Community Leadership Institute of the American Public Health Association. The Institute took place at the APHA Annual Meeting in San Diego, California, and this year focused on MCH issues and challenges in the Caribbean. A team of 10 public health practitioners and students from Trinidad, Jamaica, Barbados, and Guyana took part in a fascinating dialogue on leadership related to the public health issues unique to these countries. After reviewing the key areas of research that have important implications for mobilizing the power of communities, I presented the Future Search principles and engaged the group in an exercise rooted in these principles.

The purpose of the Maternal and Child Health Community Leadership Institute is to assist MCH program coordinators, program managers, and MCH advocates in developing and honing their leadership skills to effectively address the health concerns of women and children. The Institute, started in 2000, helps build capacity within each team (participants) in order to strengthen the MCH infrastructure within their community. This course provides a forum for the exploration of new paradigms, and new ways of approaching some of the complex and long-lasting issues related to improving maternal and child health for all populations. Overall the Institute is a part of APHA's continuing efforts to address one of its key priority areas--eliminating racial/ethnic health disparities. Despite efforts in MCH, research still shows that the healthcare needs of women and children are not being met. In order to address these issues of inadequate care, faculty members employ an interdisciplinary approach that addresses a community's "social and human capital," to assist leaders, citizens, and communities become active participants by diffusing and applying acquired social and scientific knowledge and integrate this new information into evidence-based public health practice. MCH leadership and its key attributes will be defined and methods to apply these skills will be reviewed as well as real time application (framed by the MCH Leadership Competencies). The necessary skills both from theory and practice, such as their ability to promote the health and well being of women and children or their genuine commitment, are assessed. How to be an effective MCH leader is discussed and participants are shown ways to hone or improve their skills. "MCH Leadership competencies: Working with communities and systems" are incorporated in order to promote community engagement, and this is the part that I served as faculty for. This is includes developing the relationships and dialogue between community members and those in leadership roles. This collaborative process should promote exchange of information, ideas, and resources. This course will provide participants with the knowledge to adequately define “what is a community” and demonstrate the necessary skills needed to engage the community. Participants are not only exposed to best practices but also given the opportunity to learn practical skills and develop an action plan to implement once they have returned to their communities. Ultimately, through their collaborative work, these teams will create sustainable and replicable efforts that improve the quality of life for mothers and children in communities worldwide.

Student Role: Be part of future work with the MCH Community Leadership Institute and other leadership development seminars and curricula development.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT FOR YOUTH WITH SPECIAL HEALTH NEEDS AND DISABILITY WITH A FOCUS ON ADDRESSING PREJUDICE AND BIAS
Dr. Aronson is partnering with Lisa Sockabasin, Minority Health Director for the State of Maine CDC (Public Health Agency) to hold a series of leadership dialogues for youth with special health needs and/or disability. Here is information about the first in the series , held in December 2008 (http://www.servicesforme.org/ ) :

Leadership and Communication: Taking a Closer Look
Leadership Development Series for Youth Ages 14-22 with Special Health Needs and/or a Disability, December 13, 2008, 9:30 a.m.- 2:00 p.m., Senator Inn, 284 Western Avenue, Augusta, Maine

This day included a leadership learning session and an informational meeting for youth with special health needs and/or a disability who might be interested in joining a regional or state Youth Advisory Council in Maine, USA.

In the Leadership session, we held a conversation about the differences between people. Sometimes we use differences as a way to divide ourselves from each other, or to act in ways that hurt others. By understanding how this kind of behavior works, we can become better at treating others in the same way that we expect to be treated. Through a video and conversation, we started to understand prejudice: not as something that only some people have, but as something that we all may show in communicating with others. By understanding how we all have a tendency to be prejudiced, we can learn how to listen to each other with respect and treat each other in ways that are fair. Some of us have experienced prejudice merely because of our health issues or disability. This series of workshops is an opportunity to learn how to stay positive in all our communications, and to:
• Understand how each of us is unique in how we view our world, and how that makes a difference in how we listen and communicate with each other?
• Understand the meaning of culture and how it applies to you?
• Get involved in a leadership role in Maine?
Presenters: Richard Allan Aronson, MD, MPH, Humane Worlds Center. Dick lives in Hallowell, Maine. He is grateful for the amazing opportunities for education and inspiration for public service that he has had throughout his life. Dick is deeply committed to peace, social justice, and equality for all people. He is especially dedicated to making the world better and more humane for children and youth. He has aspired to put his ideals into action through his leadership as a healer (pediatrician) and public servant (public health needs). He really enjoys teaching that engages everyone in interactive dialogue, and conversation in which all voices are deeply respected. Joining Dick is Lisa Sockabasin, Director of Minority Health for the Maine CDC (Public Health Agency).

Co-sponsors: The Maine Support Network on behalf of Maine Department of Health and Human Services, Maine CDC, Children with Special Health Needs (CSHN). This workshop is designed for youth ages 14-22 with Special Health Needs and/or Disability.

Student Role: Help develop future sessions in this series and future dynamic conversations with other groups.

PROMOTING CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE AS A KEY STRATEGY TO END HEALTH DISPARITIES AND CREATE EQUITY

For more than 15 years, Dr. Aronson’s leadership has focused on promoting the practice of cultural and linguistic competence in a wide variety of public health, maternal and child health, and human services organizations, and in communities. He is a Senior Consultant to the National Center for Cultural Competence at Georgetown University, and has given numerous keynotes, workshops, and consultations throughout the United States. A current project involves a three-year U.S. Department of Agriculture Grant to the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) Supplemental Nutrition program for the State of Maine. Humane Worlds Center , in partnership with the Minority Health Office at the Maine CDC (Public Health Agency), is providing a unique educational program to WIC Program Staff that seeks to integrate the practice of cultural and linguistic practice into all aspects of WIC services and operation. This educational program represents a synthesis of several bodies of research that are at the heart of the Humane Worlds Center.

Student Role: Be part of the development of this educational program and its application.

PROMOTING CULTURAL AND LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE AS A KEY STRATEGY TO END HEALTH DISPARITIES AND CREATE EQUITY

War and social injustice related to war have a profound impact on the health of mothers and children. Since 2001, hundreds of thousands of American parents have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are part of a U.S. military that has a greater percentage of mothers and fathers than it has had in any other war. Of roughly 263,000 people currently deployed overseas, about 43 percent are parents. Children with a parent at war are vulnerable to anxiety, depression, and other effects, some of which may last throughout their lives and pass to future generations. Homecomings are traumatic as well, especially when parents return with physical or emotional wounds.

There is an urgent need for public health and maternal and child health to place this issue front and center on our agenda. Humane World Center is deeply committed to this effort. Following the 2008 John MacQueen Lecture by Dr. Victor Sidel and a subsequent workshop that we organized at the Association of MCH (AMCHP) Programs Annual Meeting, we formed a peace and social justice maternal and child health work group. This group meets on a regular basis to establish a movement in maternal and child health to create a culture of peace and non-violence. We will give another workshop on February 22, 2009, at the AMCHP Annual Meeting. We view war as part of the continuum of violence prevention that is integral to MCH. We seek partnerships with military parents, National Guard, and other military agencies that provide MCH services to affected families, including mental health. If we cooperate in new ways, we
can make a difference in families, communities, and at the national level. Our long-term goal, consistent with public health s essence, is the primary prevention of war. This means the creation of a culture of peace in society at all levels. In our workshop, through a panel and interactive format, we 1) report on the work of our group to date; 2) highlight an educational initiative to raise urgency for action by the MCH community; 3) bring family voices and military MCH providers into our dialogue; and 4) propose incorporating this issue into the Five-Year State MCH Strengths and Needs Assessment in 2010.

Learning Objectives for the February 22, 2009, Workshop:
By the end of this presentation, attendees will better understand 1) the impact of war on the MCH population; and 2) the urgency to make this issue an MCH priority. Further, attendees will learn about the work group s actions to date and plan a course of action for the following year.

Student Role: Be part of the creation of this movement, including coordination of the group, and preparation and presentation of workshop and other materials.

Humane Worlds Center January 2009

2009-01-05T09:10:00.003-05:00

Purpose: To inspire a new generation of leaders in public health and service to create conditions under which all children and youth have the full equal opportunity to thrive in body, mind, and spirit. Background: Those of us invested in public health face local and global challenges in dealing with maternal and child mortality, violence in all forms including child abuse, obesity and other forms of malnutrition, mental illness, asthma, and many other complex issues. Our objective is to create a world more humane and equitable for women and children. To make progress, we need broad participation of many stakeholders, which requires new forms of leadership. The Humane Worlds Center for Maternal and Child Health intends to provide that leadership. The Center draws on new research that shows 1) How various forms of inequality, injustice, and stress influence health, 2) How resilience and other positive resources provide the potential to create health equity, and 3) How leadership rooted in fostering inclusive dialogue and collaborative action form the foundation for the new leadership. We provide consultation on the translation of this research into humane practice. We provide an array of educational experiential opportunities to those who seek to learn and practice such leadership. We mentor those who have a passion for public health and seek tools to translate their idealism into action. Our method of choice for this work is Future Search, a unique planning process that has been used with success worldwide for 25 years to stimulate unprecedented action.

By this means we seek to unite stakeholders and serve as a catalyst for essential but previously unlikely partnerships. Our intention is to enable people to discover common ground for action that they did not realize they shared. Such discovery can lay the foundation for leadership needed to bring dignity, hope, and equity to women and children. We seek to move away from systems that thrive on pathology, medical diagnosis, and risk reduction. Instead, we envision systems that derive their power from resilience, trust, and community. Our species has a remarkable capacity for healing and cooperating for the common good. The purpose of the Center is to mobilize that capacity. To support this service mission, we sponsor research on effective methods and mentor those who intend to practice new forms of social action. In so doing, we equip a new generation of leaders with lifelong tools to actualize their ideals.

Public Health: Our purpose in public health, defined by the USA Institute of Medicine and World Health Organization, is to foster conditions that assure optimal health in mind, body, and spirit. We commit to ending health inequities and protecting human dignity. In MCH, we seek to change social conditions so that children experience humane worlds. Such worlds help meet basic needs and support their safety and well being.

Vision: Our vision is to bring the highest ideals of public health into the lives of children and families everywhere and to improve their health by:
1) Humanizing the worlds that they experience;
2) Changing how we think about public health to embrace every facet of their lives;
3) Creating forums for dialogue that lead to effective action on global health inequities; and
4) Educating and inspiring a new generation of public service leaders to carry on this work in the long term.

Goals: We seek to 1) Create equity and end MCH disparities by radical strengthening of the capacity of all concerned parties for participatory leadership. 2) Involve young people in all aspects of our operation, so as to educate and inspire new leadership in public health. 3) Set foundations for societal changes to make equity and justice in MCH a reality; and 4) Challenge individual and organizational biases; 5) Respect all voices, including those historically marginalized; and 6) Promote opportunities for shared learning.

Expertise: We specialize in:

1. Synthesizing several bodies of research that will have a significant impact on maternal and child health practice over the next 50 years. 2. Translating this research into humane MCH and public health practice and leadership. 3. Integrating cultural and linguistic competence into public health and health as key strategy to end health disparities. 4. Changing the language of public health and medicine to better reflect our ideals and purpose. 5. Bringing multiple stakeholders together to untangle complex public health challenges and take collaborative action to solve them. 6. Inspiring a new generation of leaders in public health and service.

Services:

1. Consultation to individuals, communities, organizations to build capacity in the above, by A) Giving keynotes, motivational speeches, presentations, workshops. B) Organizing forums with intergenerational and cross-cultural dialogue. C) Writing papers and grants. 2. Teaching, mentoring, and leadership, through A) Individual and group mentoring. B) Internships to build leadership capacity of young people. 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:
raronson@verizon.net
207 215 7317 Cell
207 622 8822 Office
www.humaneworldscenter.blogspot.com
www.humaneworldscenter.org

Language and Public Health

2008-12-23T14:45:00.002-05:00

By Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH

A goal of Humane Worlds Center is to help change the language of medicine and public health so that it better reflects the underlying ideals of these noble professions. Our use of words, as I learned so well from my freshman English class at Amherst College, defines how we all approach and actually think about life. Language itself determines how we receive, process, interpret, and provide output for our thoughts and, importantly, actions. Humane Worlds Center seeks to appreciate language as a foundation for creating conditions for the use of language in ways that resonate with people from diverse cultures, across boundaries. It’s important for us to explicitly acknowledge and address the widespread use of bureaucratic jargon, complex technical terms, unintelligible acronyms, and violence related metaphors that permeate the language and culture of society as a whole. It appears everywhere in our discourse, written and verbal. For example, we “target” just about everything and everybody, most of whom don’t take kindly to the idea of being targeted; we design policies, programs, protocols, and services to, say, “combat” violence, which certainly qualifies as an oxymoron; we figure out all kinds of ways to “fight” poverty; we design “interventions” on people and communities for campaigns, for example, to “attack” high rates of asthma and its “triggers”; we describe people as “high risk cases” to be “managed” rather than as human beings to be cared for; we fill grant proposals and electronic mail with “bulleted” talking points and confusing often bizarre acronyms; in medicine, we identify babies who “fail” a hearing screen as having birth “defects”; and in public health we use the epidemiological related meaning of “surveillance” in the post-9/11 era when such a word is widely perceived in a much darker context and linked to a real war; and of course we thrive on building “infrastructure”, whatever that non-specific and vague word means to the public. The uncritical and ubiquitous use of such words and terms, though largely unintentional, contribute to cultural norms that can undermine the purpose and ideals of public health and the quest for a culture in which education and democracy thrive. In the quest for health and healing, people and communities cry out to be honored, respected, and included in the design and implementation of systems to enhance their well-being. Indeed, the genius of public health, at its best, lies in its unique ability to honor and include such cries in whole systems change. But our dominant communication patterns have the opposite effect. Our challenge is to pay greater attention to such communication and, in the long view, to change our language so that it explicitly embraces and supports the quest for a culture that affirms the ideals of education and democracy. Through such a change, we can be in a stronger position to create and sustain humane public health policies and systems that honor the dignity of all people and that reduce unconscionable inequalities. Public health has a wide array of people from around the world who carry out innovative promising practices to do just that. Our calling is to make these practices systemic and enduring.

Public Health Conversation and Mentoring at Amherst Draws 35 Students

2008-12-11T11:32:00.006-05:00

By Jodie Simms, Annah Kuriakose, and Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH

We are delighted to share that the Public Health Event held at the Amherst College Career Center on December 5, 2008, was a huge success. Thirty five students with interest and passion for public health turned out for a 90 minute dynamic conversation with six alums (Dick Aronson '69, Alan Blum '69, Gary Forester '69, Anya Guyer '99, Molly Greene '01, Jesse Bump '94) and one faculty, Prof. Christopher Dole of Anthropology. Individual mentoring sessions of 30 minutes each followed, in which all six alums participated. Jodie and Annah have received lots of positive feedback from students who have said things such as "my eyes were really opened to new possibilities and to things I never thought of before, including ways to contribute to health besides medicine". One woman said it was the best event she had ever been to! Other words used to describe it were: exciting, inspiring, thought-provoking, motivating, helpful, fantastic, and powerful. We are grateful for the sharing of experience, knowledge, and ideals that happened. We hope that the energy that came from this event will spread into the future and awaken a stronger presence of public health at Amherst and beyond.

P.S Please let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions of how we could make the event even better in the future!

North Dakota Meeting Facilitation December 9 2008

2008-12-03T14:23:00.008-05:00

By Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH

On December 9, 2008, I facilitated an exciting meeting, "Uniting for a Healthy Future: Integrating Systems for North Dakota’s Children, Youth, and Young Adults", sponsored by the North Dakota Center for Persons with Disabilities at Minot State University. The meeting took place in Bismarck and drew 35 diverse stakeholders, including several family members who shared inspiring stories of resilience, advocacy, and activism. The purpose of the gathering, funded in part by a federal grant from the United States Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Bureau, was to develop collaborative partnerships for creating integrated, family-centered, culturally competent systems of care so that children and youth with special health needs in North Dakota have the full equal opportunity to thrive in body, mind, and spirit. I helped the group 1) Identify common work efforts taking place around the state, that focus on advancing the medical home, cultural and linguistic competence, family involvement, and youth in transition to adulthood; 2) Build on current strengths of such efforts; 3) Identify how partnering on a shared vision may help enhance outcomes; and 4) Develop partnerships to sustain systematic efforts to build a healthy and productive child, youth, and young adult population in North Dakota. Broad participation of many stakeholders is essential for promoting medical home systems of care, and for assuring that integrated systems are in place to support youth with special health needs in their transition to work and adulthood. This kind of participation, rooted in core principles of cultural competence and family involvement, challenges us to develop new forms of collaborative leadership. This becomes even more urgent at times of economic crisis. Such leadership seeks to unite stakeholders and serve as a catalyst for essential but previously unlikely partnerships. It enables people to discover common ground for action that they did not realize they shared. Such discovery can bring dignity, hope, and equity to children and youth with special health needs and their families. To facilitate the day, I drew from Future Search, guiding the group through a series of small group activities (Mind Map, Prouds and Sorries, Ideal Future Scenario, Confirm Common Ground), each of which was followed by large group dialogue. Future Search, developed by Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff, is a uniquely interactive planning tool that has been used with notable success during the past 25 years in many of the world’s cultures.

Public Health Dialogue Mentoring December 5 2008 Amherst College

2008-11-29T09:43:00.003-05:00

By Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH, Jodie Simms, Annah Kuriakose

On Friday, December 5, 2008, at 2 pm, at the Career Center at College Hall, Amherst College, there will be an exciting innovative opportunity for Amherst students interested in public health to get concrete tips, contacts, and advice for applying their idealism to action.

A Public Health Dialogue: Multiple Paths to Work for Social Justice
and Healing
Friday, December 5th, 2008, Group Dialogue and Panel 2-3 PM, Individual Mentoring Sessions 3 – 5:30 pm Amherst College Career Center, College Hall

Description: Join us for a dialogue with alumni and faculty (Prof. Christopher Dole) who will speak about their experience in the public health field. Students are encouraged to bring questions and thoughts about opportunities in public health.

After the panel, from 3 - 5:30 PM, alumni panelists will be available for
individual advising/mentoring conversations with interested students. Sign
up in the Experience section of the Career Center Website:
http://amherst.erecruiting.com/er/security/login.jsp?returnto=/er/stu/calendar/career_center_calendar_view.jsp

To sign up you will need to upload a resume (a draft version is fine). If you need
assistance, please see a Peer Career Advisor, or contact the Amherst Career Center.

Individual sessions: Richard Aronson '69, Gary Forester '69, Alan Blum'69, Anya Guyer '99, Molly Greene '01

Public Health Leadership Workshop

2008-11-29T09:18:00.004-05:00

By Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH

During the past year, Humane Worlds Center has developed and refined a leadership workshop that draws on my 32 years of pediatric, public health, and public service experience. Also, it synthesizes several important bodies of research in a way that practitioners, families, communities, and future public health leaders can apply to their worlds. This workshop, which I presented at the University of Illinois School of Public Health MCH Leadership Retreat in July 2008 and at the American Public Health Association MCH Community Leadership Institute in October 2008, serves as a powerful catalyst for honest inter-generational dialogue about the future of public health. If you're interested, please contact me at raronson@verizon.net

Leadership, Legacy, and Community: Practical Tools to Transform Research into Public Health Practice

Creating equity and bringing an end to health disparities in Maternal and Child Health will require a radical strengthening of our capacity for interactive, visionary, and participatory leadership. Such leadership is needed to fuel, inform, and inspire sustainable and systemic change in order to reverse longstanding inter generational injustice. Such an effort is neither easy nor comfortable. It is a long-term process that challenges individual and organizational biases, promotes opportunities for shared learning, and respects and strengthens the voices of all, especially those of the children, families, and communities directly affected.

This workshop will:
1. Briefly highlight areas of research that are starting to form the foundation for an evidence-based practice for transformative leadership strategies needed to create equity and justice in MCH: A) The life cycle perspective to MCH. B) Biological effects of chronic stress. C) The Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Study. D) Resiliency at multiple levels. E) Social capital; and F) Conditions for productive dialogue and action.
2. Propose for consideration a set of assumptions that characterize leadership practices that show promise of success in reducing disparities, whether related to services, research, and/or teaching:
 a. Honor and respect the dignity of all people involved, and of their cultures.
 b. Consider that everyone is an "expert" and honor all voices, especially those who have historically not been included in the design of the policies that affect them.
 c. Include families and communities as equal partners from start to finish.
 d. Use simple and clear, non-jargon, and non-bureaucratic language and other communication.
 e. Draw on the strengths, resiliency, and resources of all people involved.
 f. Collect, follow, analyze, and use data in an honest, clear, and accurate way that is faithful to the core functions of public health.
 g. Build and sustain public and political will for action.
 h. Move from a paradigm of “eliminating” disparities to one of “creating” equity for all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, income, gender, religion, and nationality.
 i. Act with the knowledge that behind every statistic, every risk factor, and every preventable death is a real human being, with all the complexity, vulnerability, magnificence, and potential for good that is in each of us.
 j. Stay relationship-centered, that is, carry out the work within a context that appreciates the vital role of loving and thoughtful human relationships in promoting health, safety, and justice.
3. Give specific examples of leadership development that strive to integrate the research and the assumptions into practice.

Summary
The transformative leadership model of the kind presented at this session represents a process where we bring key stakeholders together and get the whole system in the room, thus forming new partnerships and coalitions needed to make an impact on MCH disparities and inequities. This process fosters the conditions for discovering common ground while at the same time celebrating and tapping into the richness of our diversity. It makes it possible for all of us to confront our fears, biases, and denial and move to help each other reach a deeper understanding of the underlying root systemic factors that underlie the major MCH challenges of our time. It has the potential to unite us by discovering that we have much more in common than we previously believed. The challenge is to put into practice a style of leadership that includes but goes beyond traditional historical models of public health. It seeks to foster environments in which children and families not only survive but also have the opportunity to grow and thrive and live compassionate, productive, and dignified lives.

Amherst College Public Health Event January 24 2009

2008-11-19T16:56:00.005-05:00

By Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH

As a pediatrician specializing in maternal and child health, my work has focused on honoring and respecting cultures, communities, and families in promoting the health and well being of children and youth; and in promoting strong partnerships and collaboration among multiple stakeholders to address public health issues, challenges, and disparities. In recent years, with the Humane Worlds Center I have turned my focus to teaching and mentoring, with a special focus on inspiring a new generation of public health leaders to carry out their work with skills rooted in collaboration, cultural respect, community empowerment, and taking action with a context of shared vision and common ground. This teaching and mentoring has been incredibly exciting, given the surge in interest in public health on college campuses such as Amherst, and the underlying passion to work to promote social justice in the world. I have been working on a unique project with two seniors at Amherst College, Jodie Simms and Annah Kuriakose, who are helping me start the Humane Worlds Center, a new organization whose purpose is to inspire and inform a new generation of leaders in public health to create the conditions for people to have full and equal health in mind, body, and spirit. To that end, with the Amherst College Career Center (Carolyn Bessett) and Center for Community Engagement (Molly Mead), we had a public health career panel and one-on-one mentoring on campus on March 28 and 29, 2008. Over the summer, I had two Center for Community Engagement interns, Jodie and Chenlan Bao '11, at the Humane Worlds Center. This fall of 2008, working with Jodie and Annah, we have organized a second public health conversation and mentoring session that will take place on Friday, December 5, 2008, at 2 pm at the Career Center. Our next big project is an exciting interterm event at Amherst that we are going to have at the Keefe Campus Center at Amherst College on January 24, 2009. It's a full one-day conference on public health and Amherst: Public Health and Amherst College:Mobilizing the Power of Communities to Improve a Society's Health
The goal is to start to establish an ongoing student-led public health presence on campus. To that end, we want to devote January 24 to an exploration of: What is public health? What are the key public health issues at Amherst College? How can Amherst students strengthen their capacity to work in true partnership with communities? What does it mean to work in a spirit of collaboration with families and communities? The January 24, 2009, meeting will focus on strategies, both at Amherst and beyond, needed to equip students with the capacity to:

1) Change how we think about public health to embrace every facet of our lives;
2) Create forums for dialogue that lead to effective action on local and global health inequities; and
3) Humanize and dignify the services and policies that relate to public health.

The sponsors are the Dean of the Faculty, Career Center, Center for Community Engagement, Class of 1969 Project, and Humane Worlds Center. See the description below, which I have also attached. The web link on the Amherst web site is:

https://www.amherst.edu/campuslife/interterm/courses#Public%20Health

We really want the January 24 event to bring together a diverse group of stakeholders from Amherst, surrounding communities, and public health in a spirit of collaboration and respect for each other's voice and unique contribution. Future Search (www.futuresearch.net) is a unique planning method, which has been used with notable success in many of the world's cultures, and which I have had the privilege and opportunity to practice for the past 15 years in the world of public health. This approach unites people from diverse walks of life, gives them a voice in shaping humane systems, and lays the foundation for action to create healthy communities. What differentiates Future Search from most strategic planning methods are its four principles, synthesized by Weisbord and Janoff from 75 years of social science research:

* Get the "whole system" in the room-those with authority, resources, expertise, information, and need-all in the same conversation.
* Explore the whole before seeking to fix any part. Each person has a part of the whole. When all stakeholders have the chance to put in what they know, each has a picture that none had coming in, and they can plan together in a shared context.
* Put common ground and future action front and center. Problems and conflicts become information to be shared, not action items.
* Set up meetings so people can do the work for themselves. With self-management and personal responsibility encouraged, groups are capable of doing much more than they are usually asked to do.

We will use principles from Future Search to guide our meeting.

Please contact me if you are interested in taking part: raronson@verizon.net or 207 623 3366.

Working to ending Inequalities in Infant Mortality

2008-11-19T09:26:00.006-05:00

Ending Inequalities and Creating Equity in Birth Outcomes

There is a large and unconscionable disparity in the rate at which African American and white babies die in the United States. In Wisconsin, black babies are four times more likely to die during their first year of life. To help address this, the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health hired the Center’s founder and director, Richard Aronson, M.D., M.P.H., to review the research and promising practices on birth outcome disparities, and make recommendations for a special initiative by the University. Read his report at http://wphf.med.wisc.edu/specialinitiative/index.php and a presentation that he gave at a Wingspread Conference held in May 2008, at http://wphf.med.wisc.edu/specialinitiative/wingspread.php.

Future Search Conference on Home Births

2008-11-19T09:21:00.002-05:00

By Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH, and Jodie Simms

Planning a Future Search Conferenfce on Home Births in the United States

Humane Worlds Center is helping to organize and facilitate a Future Search Conference (www.futuresearch.net) on home births in the United States. It will be a multi-disciplinary consensus conference of key stakeholders around the provision of home birth services in the United States, to be convened by the University of California San Francisco and various organizations, including the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Association of Certified Nurse Midwives, Mothers and Midwives Associated, Lamaze International, Association of Women Hospital Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses, and the International Center for Traditional Childbirth. Further, it is hoped that public health practitioners and students, insurers, government agencies, health economists, medical anthropologists, state and national legislators, and women who have given birth will be among the eventual participants. The purpose of the conference is to start to bridge the "divide" between the medical and midwife communities over out-of-hospital births in the United States. Safety of birth in any setting is of utmost priority. Rights to choice and self-determination and culturally appropriate healing are also core values in American discourse that influence this issue. The purpose of this multidisciplinary conference of key stakeholders will be to craft a consensus policy and strategy on provision of home birth services. The project may also inform regulatory discourse, alternative funding structures, and the required modifications of curricula to prepare physicians and midwives in urban, rural and remote settings to provide maternity services across birth settings.

Mentoring in Action

2008-11-18T16:44:00.004-05:00

By Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH, Annah Kuriakose, and Jodie Simms,

Mentoring is central to the purpose of Humane Worlds Center. Mentoring college students interested in public health, when done well, can provide the seeds for a lifetime of leadership and service to make the world more just and equitable. Such justice and equity is essential to the optimal health of the public. Students who hunger for real world experience in working for social justice can find a rich variety of options in the public health profession. Good mentoring can have a positive, if not inspirational, impact on a student's life. It can equip the student with tools that she can use to make the decision for what to do upon graduating. Putting a student in contact with people who offer additional help along the way is a vital part of the mentoring process. Students are often filled with many ideas about what they are interested in and how to make a difference. Good mentoring provides the help needed to move forward in specific ways, and to focus one's dreams and ideals into something concrete. Mentoring can help solidify goals, and open new doors to reach those goals.

To that end, with the great help of the Career Center, we have organized a public health dialogue and mentoring session at Amherst College on December 5, 2008. Five Amherst alumni and one faculty member will be available at that time to answer questions, discuss concerns, and provide individual mentoring sessions. The announcement follows.

From the Amherst Career Center:

Get this on your calendar - it's a wonderful opportunity...

A Public Health Dialogue: Multiple Paths to Work for Social Justice and Healing
2-3 PM Friday, December 5th, 2008

Join us for a dialogue with alumni and faculty who will speak about their experience in the public health field. Students are encouraged to bring questions and thoughts about opportunities in public health. After the panel, from 3 - 5:30 PM, some panelists will be available for individual advising/mentoring conversations with interested students. Sign up in the Experience section of the Career Center Website. To sign up you will need to upload a resume (a draft version is fine). If you need assistance, please see a Peer Career Advisor, or contact the Career Center.

Public Health and Amherst College January 24, 2009

2008-11-13T11:03:00.003-05:00

By Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH, Jodie Simms (Amherst '09), and Annah Kuriakose (Amherst '09),

We are delighted to announce an exciting event at Amherst College on January 24, 2009. If you'd like to be part of it, please contact one of us (raronson@verizon.net, jsimms09@amherst.edu, akuriakose'09@amherst.edu):

Public Health and Amherst College:
Mobilizing the Power of Communities to Improve a Society’s Health
Date: Saturday, January 24, 2008
Times: TBA
Location: Friedmann Room, Keefe Campus Center, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts
Sponsoring Department/Office: Amherst College Career Center, Amherst Center for Community Engagement, The Dean of Faculty, Amherst Class of 1969 Project, Humane Worlds Center for Maternal and Child Health
Instructor/Facilitator: Dr. Richard Aronson, MD, MPH '69, Jodie Simms '09, Annah Kuriakose '09
Contact: Jodie Simms (jsimms09@amherst.edu), Annah Kuriakose (akuriakose09@amherst.edu)

Description:

This conference will bring together various groups invested in public health, including students, faculty, staff, practitioners, educators, and community members. It will be an action-oriented dialogue on promoting public health awareness, education, and action at Amherst College and beyond. Some topics which will be discussed are: What is public health? What are public health issues that affect Amherst College and the surrounding community? And how can diverse stakeholders work together to create conditions under which all people have the full equal opportunity to thrive in body, mind, and spirit. The day will conclude with a specific action-oriented focus on 1) Strengthening public health partnerships between Amherst College and the surrounding community, and 2) Starting to establish an ongoing student-led public health presence at Amherst.

APHA MCH Leadership Institute 2008

2008-11-03T15:45:00.004-05:00

By Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH

On the weekend of October 25-26, 2008, I had the opportunity to once again participate, as faculty, in the Maternal and Child Health Community Leadership Institute of the American Public Health Association. The Institute took place at the APHA Annual Meeting in San Diego, California, and this year focused on MCH issues and challenges in the Carribbean. A team of 10 public health practitioners and students from Trinidad, Jamaica, Barbados, and Guyana took part in a fascinating dialogue on leadership related to the public health issues unique to these countries. After reviewing the key areas of research that have important implications for mobilizing the power of communities, I presented the Future Search principles and engaged the group in an exercise rooted in these principles.

The purpose of the Maternal and Child Health Community Leadership Institute is to assist MCH program coordinators, program managers, and MCH advocates in developing and honing their leadership skills to effectively address the health concerns of women and children. The Institute, started in 2000, helps build capacity within each team (participants) in order to strengthen the MCH infrastructure within their community. This course provides a forum for the exploration of new paradigms, and new ways of approaching some of the complex and long-lasting issues related to improving maternal and child health for all populations. Overall the Institute is a part of APHA's continuing efforts to address one of its key priority areas--eliminating racial/ethnic health disparities. Despite efforts in MCH, research still shows that the healthcare needs of women and children are not being met. In order to address these issues of inadequate care faculty members will employ an intersectoral approach that addresses a community's "social and human capital," to assist leaders, citizens, and communities become active participants by diffusing and applying acquired social and scientific knowledge and integrate this new information into evidence-based public health practice. MCH leadership and its key attributes will be defined and methods to apply these skills will be reviewed as well as real time application (framed by the MCH Leadership Competencies). The necessary skills both from theory and practice, such as their ability to promote the health and well being of women and children or their genuine commitment, are assessed. How to be an effective MCH leader is discussed and participants are shown ways to hone or improve their skills. "MCH Leadership competencies: Working with communities and systems" are incorporated in order to promote community engagement, and this is the part that I served as faculty for. This is includes developing the relationships and dialogue between community members and those in leadership roles. This collaborative process should promote exchange of information, ideas, and resources. This course will provide participants with the knowledge to adequately define “what is a community” and demonstrate the necessary skills needed to engage the community. Participants are not only exposed to best practices but also given the opportunity to learn practical skills and develop an action plan to implement once they have returned to their communities. Ultimately, through their collaborative work, these teams will create sustainable and replicable efforts that improve the quality of life for mothers and children in communities worldwide.

Oklahoma Child Abuse Retreat Keynote

2008-11-03T07:21:00.003-05:00

By Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH

Humane Worlds Center will present the keynote address at a Statewide Child Abuse Retreat for Oklahoma on November 5, 2008. The event is sponsored by the Oklahoma State Department of Health (OSDH), Family Support and Prevention Service, and the Oklahoma State Interagency Child Abuse Prevention Task Force (ITF).

The following is from the program agenda:

Presentation by Dr. Richard Aronson, MD, MPH
Director of the Humane Worlds Center for Maternal and Child Health

Dr. Aronson will focus on how society has a vested interest in seeing that all children do well, that they thrive in mind, body, and spirit; and that we all benefit when children grow up to become healthy, productive, and compassionate adults. The interests of society as a whole – indeed, its very security – depend on the health and safety of our children. They ride on the extent to which we invest in children as our most precious resource and in parenthood and childrearing as the most important of all “occupations”. As Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis said, “If you bungle raising your children, nothing else in life matters very much.”

Dr. Richard Aronson received the 2007 Ray E. Helfer, MD Award, presented by The National Alliance of Children's Trust and Prevention Funds and the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Aronson is a Board-Certified pediatrician with 30 years of service and leadership as a public health and medical professional, and currently serves as the Director of the Humane Worlds Center for Maternal and Child Health in Maine. Dr. Aronson's career includes a decade of clinical pediatric practice as a developmental pediatrician, 15 years of Future Search facilitation, and senior level leadership in the Vermont, Wisconsin, and Maine State Health Departments since 1983. He has led numerous statewide efforts to prevent child abuse in Maine, as well as held clinical faculty positions in Pediatrics at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, the University of Wisconsin Medical School, and the Medical College of Wisconsin. Dr. Aronson earned his medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine in 1974, during which time he obtained a one-year fellowship to work with malnourished children in Cali, Colombia, and a master's degree in public health from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1988.

Youth Leadership Training December 2008

2008-11-03T07:15:00.004-05:00

By Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH

Humane Worlds Center is involved in a number of exciting events in the autumn of 2008. Here is one of them:

Leadership and Communication: Taking a Closer Look
Leadership Development Series for Youth Ages 14-22 with Special Health Needs and/or a Disability
December 13, 2008
9:30 a.m.- 12:30 p.m.
Senator Inn, 284 Western Avenue, Augusta, Maine

This day included a three hour leadership learning session, which I had the privilege of facilitating, for 20 youth with special health needs and/or a disability who might be interested in joining a regional or state Youth Advisory Council in Maine, USA.

In the Leadership session, I facilitated a dynamic learning conversation about the differences between people. Dialogue, with active participation by the youth and their parents, focused on how sometimes we use differences as a way to divide ourselves from each other, or to act in ways that hurt others. By understanding how this kind of behavior works, we discussed in small groups and large group dialogue how we can become better at treating others in the same way that we expect to be treated. Through a powerful video, "A Class Divided" and conversation using a Future Search , we started to understand prejudice: not as something that only some people have, but as something that we all may show in communicating with others. By understanding how we all have a tendency to be prejudiced, we can learn how to listen to each other with respect and treat each other in ways that are fair. Some of us have experienced prejudice merely because of our health issues or disability. The overall goal of our experience together was to learn how to stay positive in all your communications by:
• Understanding how each of us is unique in how we view our world, and how that makes a difference in how we listen and communicate with each other?
• Understanding the meaning of culture and how it applies to us?
• Getting involved in a leadership role in Maine on issues that affect youth with disabilities and/or special health needs.

The announcement of the event described Dr. Aronson in the following way: Dick lives in Hallowell, Maine. He is grateful for the wonderful opportunities for education and inspiration that he has had throughout his life. Dick is deeply committed to peace, social justice, and equality for all people. He is especially dedicated to making the world better and more humane for children and youth. He has aspired to put his ideals into action through his leadership as a healer (pediatrician) and public servant (public health needs). He really enjoys teaching that engages everyone in interactive dialogue, and conversation in which all voices are deeply respected.

Co-sponsors: The Maine Support Network on behalf of Maine Department of Health and Human Services, Maine CDC, Children with Special Health Needs (CSHN).

On-site facilitators: Mal Cyr, Pam Flood and Corda Kinzie.

This workshop was designed for youth ages 14-22 with Special Health Needs and/or Disability.

Follow-up questions: Call or text Mallory Cyr at US +1 2075761980 Call or email mallorycyr@hrtw.org

Humane Worlds Center Core Values

2008-08-21T16:30:00.002-04:00

By Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH

We embrace the following core values as the foundation to create humane worlds for children and families:

1. Honor the dignity of all children and families, and of their cultures.
2. Consider everyone an “expert” on their own experience.
3. Include women, youth, families, and communities as equal partners at all times.
4. Communicate with clear, non-jargon, non-acronym, and non-bureaucratic language.
5. Draw on peoples’ strengths, resilience, and resources.
6. Use data in an accurate way that is faithful to the art and science of public health.
7. Build public and political will for action.
8. Move from a paradigm of “eliminating disparities” to one of creating equity, regardless of race, ethnicity, income, gender, religion, geography, and nationality.
9. Recognize that behind every statistic and risk factor is a real human being with all the complexity, vulnerability, magnificence, and potential for good that is in each of us.
10. Stay relationship-centered. Encourage networks of social connectedness in promoting health and justice.

Child Abuse as a Public Health Issue

2008-08-15T14:36:00.002-04:00

By Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH

In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt articulated a governmental and societal responsibility for the health and safety of the nation's children. He stated that "each child represents a potential addition to the productive capacity...of the nation or, if allowed to suffer from neglect, a potential addition to the destructive forces of a community". Roosevelt made clear that society has a vested interest in seeing that all children do well. We all benefit when children grow up to become healthy, productive, and compassionate adults. The interests of society as a whole - indeed, its very security - depend on the welfare of our children, and ride on the extent to which we invest in children as our most precious resource. Roosevelt, in effect, was making the case, with which I strongly agree, that the prevention of child abuse and neglect, in all of its manifestations, is fundamentally a public health issue that should be front and center on our agenda as a nation and a world.

The stakes are high. A study conducted by Vincent J. Felitti and Robert Anda at Kaiser Permanente’s Department of Preventive Medicine revealed that “adverse childhood experiences are vastly more common than recognized or acknowledged, and [they] have a powerful relation to adult health a half-century later.” The child abuse categories of the Adverse Child Experiences (ACE) Study were: physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. Other ACE's included in the study were an alcohol and/or drug abuser in the household; an incarcerated household member; someone who has severe mental illness; mother treated violently; one or no parents; and emotional or physical neglect. The study revealed that a survivor of four or more of these adverse childhood experiences has a higher likelihood of smoking, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, using intravenous drugs, and attempting suicide. Depression and obesity were also found more likely among individuals with exposure to childhood trauma.

This study’s findings highlight the public health urgency and challenge to prevent childhood trauma and, when it happens, to promote healing. We turn, for example, to Emmy Werner’s groundbreaking research on resilience. The Kauai Longitidunal Study followed 700 high risk children born in 1955 on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, addresses two fundamental questions: 1) What are the long-term effects of adverse perinatal and early child-rearing conditions on physical, cognitive, and psychosocial development in mid-life? 2) Which protective factors allow most individuals who are exposed to multiple childhood risk factors to do well in adulthood? The study followed a group of high risk children who had been exposed to chronic economic poverty, birth complications, parenntal psychopathology, and family discord as well as comparison groups.

The news from the study was, on one hand, good. A loving home environment makes all the difference. The long-term outcomes depended, increasingly, on the quality of the child-rearing environment and the emotional support provided by family members, friends, teachers, and adult mentors. One out of three who seemed headed for “disaster” didn’t turn out that way. These individuals, in addition to the quality of the child-rearing environment, had the following protective factors: 1) Charisma! They had an ability to be self-confident and attractive to other people. “Look, I’m worth something.” They took responsibility for themselves and others from an early age. 2) Self-efficacy: I can make things happen. I can make a difference. 3) At least one loving consistent adult. 4) Mentor: A teacher, coach, or other adult is extremely important. As Jacqueline kennedy Onassis once said, "If you bungle raising your children, nothing else in life matters very much".

On the other hand, the research by Werner and others highlights the urgency and necessity of putting our resources into programs and services that create humane worlds for children. We need to back up our words about investing in children with action and policy at all levels. All children benefit from humane resilience promoting systems in education, child care, health care, and parent support. Home visitation programs, when carried out under specific criteria, have been shown to prevent child abuse. Andd yet our society is lacking in its commitment to providing these and other services to all families.

Research on social support shows that a child needs someone who is absolutely crazy about him or her. But research also shows that youth and adults need that level of intimacy too. Thus, to prevent child abuse, for example, adults must have their own close relationships that encourage and support them to engage in safe parenting practices. Otherwise, a program to prevent child abuse is bound to fail.

The Humane Worlds Center provides consultation to communities, organizations, and others who seek to translate research, some of which I have reviewed above, into humane and culturally competent strategies to prevent child abuse.

Hope, Resilience, and Health

2008-08-14T11:37:00.007-04:00

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

Humane Worlds Center Services Provided

2008-08-13T16:26:00.003-04:00

By Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH

The Humane Worlds Center specializes in:

1. Synthesizing research that will have a significant impact on maternal and child health practice over the next 50 years: A) Social determinants of health. B) Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. C) Resilience. D) Life Course Perspective. E) Brain development. F) Chronic stress from racial discrimination and other inequality. G) Conditions for productive dialogue.
2. Translating this research into humane MCH and public health practice and leadership.
3. Integrating cultural understanding and respect into MCH and public health as key strategy to end disparities.
4. Changing the language of public health to better reflect our ideals and purpose.
5. Bringing multiple stakeholders together to untangle complex public health challenges and take collaborative action to solve them.
6. Inspiring a new generation of leaders in public health and service.

We offer the following services:

1. Consultation to individuals, communities, and organizations to build capacity in the above. Includes A) Giving presentations and workshops. B) Organizing forums. C) Writing papers and grants.
2. Teaching, mentoring, and leadership. Includes A) Individual and group mentoring of college and graduate students exploring public health and service. B) Classroom instruction. C) Internships to give experience and build capacity of young people for public health leadership and service.
3. Organization and facilitation of interactive meetings with broad stakeholder participation to unite diverse parties and spark action to create public health equity.

Please contact me if you're interested:

raronson@verizon.net
207 215 7317 Cell
207 622 8822 Office

Amherst College and Humane Worlds Connections

2008-07-30T13:39:00.015-04:00

Amherst College's Citizen Summer Program

Another really great partnership between Amherst and the Humane Worlds Center has been established through the Community Engagement Center this summer. They have started a new program called the Citizen Summer Program, which is supporting and encouraging students to engage in public service work. Around 200 students are being sponsored this year to be able to participate in internships across the globe. These students are working locally, regionally, nationally, and globally with non-profit organizations. In the spirit of Terras Irradient, this opportunity allows students to not only make a difference in the world but let the world have a large impact on them.

It was through this program, Richard Aronson '69 and I (Jodie Simms '09) were able to meet and work together this summer, along with another great Amherst student, Chenlan Bao '11. Together, we have worked this summer to try and help build the foundations of the center from Richard's initial vision. Since the Humane Worlds Center is focused on promoting public service and leadership in youth, this connection between the college and the center is a very valuable one which will hopefully continue and grow into the future.

Personal/Reflective Note:

----From my prespective, as a student intern, I am overwhelmed with how incredible an experience this internship has been. I am learning more than I ever thought possible in such a short amount of time and I am meeting absolutely amazing and truly inspiring individuals who are in the business of community building and making the future brighter for all. Learning from these sort of real-life applications and mentors in my field of interest are exactly what I need at this point in my life. I am looking forward to continuing this work, supporting the Humane Worlds Center throughout my life, and watching it grow. As well as bringing back everything I've learned to share with the Amherst community, in my last year.

Thanks to all the individuals who I've met along the way...

Jodie

Research Foundations for Humane Worlds Center

2008-07-25T10:34:00.003-04:00

By Richard A. Aronson, MD, MPH

Creating equity and ending health disparities in Maternal and Child Health will require a radical strengthening of our capacity for interactive and participatory leadership. Such leadership is needed to reverse longstanding injustice. Such an effort is neither easy nor comfortable. It is a long-term process that challenges individual and organizational biases, promotes opportunities for shared learning, and includes all who have a stake in the outcome. The Humane Worlds Center seeks to develop such leadership, especially among those aspiring to public health and service.

The Center draws on eight bodies of research that are coalescing to form the foundation for the practice of such leadership. They are:

1. Life Course Perspective for Maternal and Child Health
2. Stress and Biology
3.Early brain development
4.Adverse Childhood Experiences Study
5.Racism and Race as an Independent Stressor
6.Resilience

7. Conditions for productive dialogue and action

8. Social Connectedness

An overview of these eight bodies of research and a review of promising practices to reduce birth outcome disparities was part of a 2008 paper written for the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health Partnership Program.

Amherst College Humane Worlds Center Connections

2008-07-24T06:33:00.005-04:00

On October 26, 1963, President John F. Kennedy gave a remarkable address at a special Convocation as part of the ground breaking ceremonies for the Robert Frost Library at Amherst College in Amherst, Massachussetts, USA. In his remarks, President Kennedy said, “Privilege is here, and with privilege goes responsibility.”

From the light of that autumn day, I am honored and humbled to serve as the Director of the Humane Worlds Center for Maternal and Child Health. We are a member of the Future Search Network. I view this Center as an opportunity as a way to carry on Amherst’s commitment to its historic mission, Terras Irradient, and to carry out the legacy, challenge, and hope that President Kennedy posed to the Amherst community 45 years ago. I have tried, humbly, to always be in a learning Terras Irradient mode in partnership with communities to untangle the complex tough roots that underlie public health disparities - social injustice and inequities. I have learned, taught, and practiced service that is highly collaborative, honors all voices, celebrates diversity, discovers common ground, and inspires people to realize their deepest aspirations. In 1993, I discovered the remarkable alignment between these ideals and the principles and methods of Future Search, and since then have sought to bring the two together in practice.

Through this service, I have discovered common threads that unite people from all walks of life and, at the same time, respect their uniqueness. I continue to learn how to serve in ways that bring out the best in people and tap into the capacity of our species for creativity, healing, and cooperating for the common good.

Much of the vision and practical action that forms the foundation for the Humane Worlds Center has its roots from my Amherst undergraduate years, and more recently the Class of 1969 Project led by Justin Grimes. At Amherst, I had the privilege to organize and lead Amherst Amigos, a Peace Corps-like project in which teams of students lived and worked in rural Mexican villages. I became active in the Mount Toby Friends Meeting, took part in the Amherst Peace Vigil, and tutored students in Easthampton. For the summer after graduation, I was among the first group of counselors for the the then brand new Amherst ABC Project, whose rich legacy at the College and in the Town continues to this day.

At its best, Amherst College uniquely inspires its students to enlighten and change the world. At its best, Amherst nurtures a passion to live and work for the common good and, through community, to keep hope alive. The final verse of the “Hymn to Amherst” has always touched me to the core:

“In the love of Amherst hearts abides her greatest glory,
As the future still imparts the old unchanging story,
Youth and beauty, learning, faith,
Bound by friendship’s charter,
To the College we have made with eye and mind and heart.”

How this small college, in a once remote New England town, uniquely has the capacity to produce men and women of conscience and ideals is both mysterious and purposeful, a tribute to the vision of its founders and those who followed. I rejoice in this capacity.

Through the Humane Worlds Center, building on the successful record of Future Search and drawing from eight bodies of research, we strive to inspire a new generation of leaders in public health and service throughout the world. The Center works with partners, from private and public sectors, including Amherst through the Center for Community Engagement, to improve the health of women and children. We hope to provide students with opportunities to grow as leaders who will do no less than change the world. We intend to foster conditions and opportunities for idealism without illusion to thrive.

As a Religion Major at Amherst, I studied the theologian, Paul Tillich, and came across a passage that has stayed with me ever since. “He who risks and fails,” Tillich wrote, “can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.” People with the courage to confront injustice are risk takers. Amherst, at its best, encourages its students to take risks, and to challenge the status quo, not only in the external world but also within ourselves. The Humane Worls Center supports such courage and seeks to enable it to grow. At Amherst, we learn to question, probe, and engage in a lifelong search for authenticity and hope, all of which are key to a healthy mind, body, and spirit. With a combination of thoughtful, passionate, and practical idealism topped off by a healthy dose of humor, we embrace Amherst in embracing the Center and the quest for such health.

Terras Irradient,

Dick Aronson, Amherst Class of 1969

Humane Worlds Center Origins

2008-07-22T12:28:00.004-04:00

For many years I have practiced a form of participative planning and leadership uniquely suited to the task of making the world a better place for women and children. In the course of doing this work, I have discovered common threads that unite people from all walks of life. I’ve seen people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives – such as social workers, physicians, nurses, child care specialists, teachers, clergy, government officials, employers, youth, and families - come together, plan, and carry out extraordinary action steps to heal themselves and their communities. This form of leadership, which we intend to bring to a new generation of leaders, is at the heart of the Humane Worlds Center for Maternal and Child Health.

From this work I became convinced that we all hunger for a world where dignity and respect prevail for everyone. Instead of systems that pathologize, stereotype, and lump children and families into a dizzying array of risks, diseases, and disorders, we aspire to humane practices that honor all people. Our species, when provided the right conditions, has a remarkable capacity for creativity, healing, and cooperating for the common good.

From 1991 through 2007, as a senior public health executive in the States of Wisconsin and Maine, I sought to mobilize people to improve the health of mothers, children, and families. The purpose of public health, as defined by the Institute of Medicine, is to fulfill society’s interest in fostering the conditions under which all people can be healthy. Public health seeks to assure that all people have the opportunity to fulfill their potential to be healthy in mind, body, and spirit. A central commitment of public health is to end health inequalities and protect human dignity and rights. Maternal and Child Health (MCH) seeks exactly the same goals. We work to create sustainable systems and services to enable families and communities provide children with the care, love, dignity, and respect that they need.

We are now creating a new entity to bring together in a shared task of societal change people throughout the world who share commitment to this sector, and to young people who seek a home to nurture and make real their ideals for service. Humane Worlds for Maternal and Child Health is a new Global Center of the Future Search Network (www.futuresearch.net). It is intended to bring the loftiest vision of public health into the lives of children and families everywhere. It is our aim to equip families, communities, and society with tools to create the conditions under which all children have the opportunity to survive and thrive. We will do this in a focused, persistent, and empowering way (Future Search) that has been successful worldwide, and brought about long term changes with relatively modest investments.

Humane Systems for Early Childhood in Maine

2008-07-21T14:30:00.002-04:00

Much of the philosophy and approach of the Humane Worlds Center grew out of the work done in Maine to promote humane systems for early childhood. Today we took part in the monthly meeting of the Governor's Early Childhood Task Force, chaired by First Lady Karen Baldacci and facilitated by Sheryl Peavey, who directs the Early Childhood Initiative. See the excellent website that Sheryl created and that reflects the commitment and team work of many people in Maine from diverse sectors. A Future Search Conference on Early Childhood in Maine, held in Hallowell, Maine, in January 2005, played an important role in defining the state's current plan and action.

A Potential Future Search Conference in South Africa!

2008-07-20T23:15:00.001-04:00

Notes from our first conference call:

Monday, June 30, 2008

90 minute call, 20 participants from around the world, including 3 in South Africa, a participant from the Netherlands, Canada and all over the US. Participants also included 4 students from Amherst College and professionals in a wide range of fields including physicians and consultants.

Purpose of Call:
Start to explore in a broad way the possibility of a Future Search Conference in South Africa on Maternal and Child Health in 2010 or 2011. The Future Search Conference, and the planning that leads up to it, would help lay the foundation and plant the seeds for Humane Worlds for Child Health: A New Global Center of the Future Search Network (FSN). It would build on the inspiring Future Search Network (FSN) Learning Exchange that took place in Johannesburg in November 2007, graciously hosted by Dumisani Ncala, John Goss, Tamara Sutila, and Aria Merkestein, Also, today’s call will explore the potential for youth and young people to play an important role in developing and planning for this conference, as well as in other activities of the Center.

Humane Worlds would like to explore with our South African colleagues, friends, and partners the potential for a Future Search Conference there in 2010 or 2011 to bring diverse groups together to focus on Maternal and Child Health and to set a long-term direction for the Center. All of this is in a preliminary explorative phase.

Agenda:
1 Welcome and Introductions
2 Mission and Vision of the HWC and the Future Search Network
3 Brief Introduction to Future Search Methods and Principles
4 Connections with Amherst College : Summer Internship Program of the Amherst Center for Community Engagement, Dream for Democracy , Class of 1969 Project .
5 Connections with South Africa: Future Search Network , Cotlands Project, Dream for Democracy, Global Camps Africa, others.
6 Dialogue on a Future Search Conference in South Africa on MCH and the future of the Humane Worlds Center: Initial thoughts, ideas, dreams, issues, complexities.
7 Next steps: What actions and further conversations are needed to proceed? Who else to include? Further information needed? When to reconvene?
8 Close: Feel free to briefly share learning or impression from today, and how you would like to be further involved. Or feel free to take some time and get back to me. Please send your full contact information

Key Points from the Call:

We should be sure to include and not duplicate the vast efforts which are all ready underway in South Africa.
Identifying a diverse group of stakeholders and participants with primary leadership in South Africa will be one of the most important steps in the planning process.
It is important that everyone is in the room and everyone has their voices heard throughout the process of planning and beyond.
We should be careful not to go into this effort with the attitude of "helping" people. We need to be open to learning from each other.
Building a grassroots level organization is paramount.
The Learning Exchange in 2007 which took place in Johannesburg, inspired continuous work in community based projects.
Dream for Democracy: Started in October 2007 by 3 Amherst College students. Focus on citizen and civic engagement, open dialogues about democracy through the power of students’ debate and discussion. Works to educate, engage, and empower youth.
Cotlands: A children's home in 3 different locations of South Africa. The only hospice for children born with HIV/AIDS.
Global Camps Africa: Summer camps for children and youth. A successful program seen as a vehicle for social change, especially changing attitudes towards HIV/AIDS.
Important to connect with students, especially at the universities in South Africa
Funding and developing a planning committee need to be addressed.

Overall it a really great first meeting. Thank you to all who participated!

Next meeting will be scheduled by Dick for the coming months...

Organization

2008-07-20T22:19:00.002-04:00

Organization

The Center has a strong connection with the Future Search Network (FSN), which strongly supports and is fully committed to its long-term success. The Network was founded in 1993 by Marvin Weisbord and Sandra Janoff as an international non-profit program of Resources for Human Development, Incorporated (RHD). RHD is a large (501) (C) (3) human services umbrella organization based in Philadelphia, USA. FSN delivers uniquely innovative and effective planning services around the world in any culture, in any language, for whatever people can afford. Its 350 volunteers work on everything from community development, education, health care, employment, housing, and youth issues, to sustainability in business firms and communities. The Network runs hundreds of conferences for communities, schools, hospitals, and non-profits and has a notable track record in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, India, and North and South America.

Future Search Network also has worked with the United Nations Development Program on disaster risk reduction and with UNICEF in many countries on improving the lives of children, notably in the Southern Sudan where it helped to free thousands of children from involuntary soldiering, and in Indonesia where it helped to decentralize a bureaucratic school system. The three day Future Search conferences have led to years of ongoing collaboration, way beyond what people expect from a single meeting (Weisbord M, Janoff S, Future Search, 2000; Weisbord M, Janoff S, Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There, 2007; Schweitz R, Martens K, Future Search in School District Change, 2006; Weisbord M, Productive Workplaces Revisited, 2004).

Successful Record

2008-07-20T21:46:00.000-04:00

Successful Record

The Center builds on the 20 year record of positive results from Future Search planning meetings held around the world, facilitated by Future Search Network members (there are 350), and documented in many books and articles. Here are a few examples:

1) Collaboration between tribal chiefs and military leadership led to the demobilization of 2,500 Southern Sudanese child soldiers.

2) The combined energy of residents from seven Hawaiian towns, once alienated from one another, became committed to building and sustaining a healthy community in body, mind, and spirit.

3) A new dedicated revenue stream of $50 million per year for the City of Seattle, Washington, emerged from a 2020 Vision Campaign to Meet Basic Human Needs by 2020 and Eliminate Institutional Racism; and the woman who led the Campaign received the 2008 Leadership Legacy Award from the Center for Ethical Leadership.

4) Statewide awareness of the human and financial benefits of investing early in pregnant women and young children became a cultural norm in Maine, supported by the Governor and Attorney General.

5) Over a period of nine years, new partnerships linking community leaders, families, state and local public health, and health care systems set the stage for a commitment of public and political will to reduce black infant mortality in Wisconsin, where African American babies are four times more likely than white babies to die in the first year of life.

6) In Bolton, United Kingdom, children became increasingly involved as an integral component of the City’s School Community efforts to make “Every Child Matters” a reality.

7) New funds were leveraged for parenting education and child care in New Mexico.

8) A plan for health coverage for all people in Vermont was signed into law in 2006.

9) The Nevada Public Health Foundation was established.

10) The Colorado River Headwater Forum, a non-profit organization of diverse stakeholders formed from a Future Search in 1991 (documented in Discovering Common Ground). This group cooperatively developed a Water Quality Plan approved by the state of Colorado and continues to meet and work together on issues that matter to them, despite their history of law suits and contentiousness.

11) The Ute Mountain Ute Reservation’s Future Search included a shared vision of a youth center with tutoring and other services and activities for the youth on this Indian reservation. A summer visitor subsequently procured a 5-year grant of $10 million from the U.S. Department of Labor, and the vision became a reality.

12) Long festering racial tensions in Berrien County, Michigan, transformed into economic development to attract new businesses and open affordable housing.

13) Improvements in water quality occurred in Pakistan.

14) Credit cards were introduced into Eastern Europe.

15) Coalitions formed to address the AIDS epidemic in South Africa, Senegal, Nigeria, and Ghana.

Funding and Activities of the Center

2008-07-20T21:26:00.000-04:00

Funding and Activities of the Center

The activities of the Center for the next three years (July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2011), are to:

1. Plan, implement, and conduct follow up on two Global Future Search Conferences to be held in 2010 or 2011: one in the United States and one in South Africa. The purpose of these Future Search Conferences is to plan and set in motion action on the Center’s long-term future and sustainability. Thus, the development of the Center itself will be in alignment with our core values and with the Principles and Methodology of Future Search.

2. Hire 3.0 Full Time Equivalent Center Staff to carry out the initial work to lead, organize, manage, and coordinate the Center in its three core functions of service, teaching, and research.

3. Establish a global data base of MCH related Future Search Conferences and their outcomes,

4. Recruit an Advisory Committee,

5. Form deep partnerships with and among diverse people and organizations whose involvement in the Center is essential,

6. Provide internships throughout the year to undergraduate and graduate students.

7. Develop and pilot an experiential curriculum for students at Amherst College and other colleges and universities.

8. Secure funding.

We expect that with this three year effort, the energy and commitment to leverage long-term funding sources will enable the Center to sustain itself across generations.

Functions of the Center

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Functions

We embody service, teaching, and research. Our intention is weave leadership development into all aspects of these functions:

Service

1) Outreach and training to communities, organizations, and other entities that seek innovative participatory approaches to address seemingly intransient health disparities.

2) In-depth help to communities in planning and facilitating Future Search Conferences.

3) Comprehensive consultation to all groups and individuals who are seeking to deepen their leadership for creating health equity for the MCH population.

Teaching

1) Serve as a teaching and learning resource for communities to develop their skills in applying the Center’s Core Values and Principles to the tough and complex issues of health inequity affecting their children and families.

2) Starting with a partnership with Amherst College’s Center for Community Engagement in 2008, provide students in higher education throughout the world with individual and group opportunities to take part in experiential learning to equip them with lifelong tools to use in public service leadership of any kind.

Research

The Center is a learning laboratory. We view all of our actions as opportunities for learning. We documenting program outcomes and evaluating effectiveness. We contribute to the knowledge base for strategies that work. To ensure increasingly effective practice, we build quality assurance development into our work.

Method

2008-07-20T20:56:00.000-04:00

Method

We serve as a global service, learning, and research center for creating humane and equitable systems for children and youth. To do this, we draw on Future Search, a planning and leadership method, which has been used with notable success in many of the world’s cultures. We use Future Search principles and meetings to unite people from all walks of life. We give them opportunity and voice in shaping humane systems. We lay the foundation for action to mobilize communities to face MCH challenges. What differentiates Future Search from most strategic planning methods are its four principles, synthesized by Weisbord and Janoff from 75 years of social science research:

Get the “whole system” in the room—those with authority, resources, expertise, information, and need—all in the same conversation.
Explore the whole before seeking to fix any part. Each person has a part of the whole. When all stakeholders have the chance to put in what they know, each has a picture that none had coming in, and they can plan together in a shared context.
Put common ground and future action front and center. Problems and conflicts become information to be shared, not action items.
Set up meetings so people can do the work for themselves. With self-management and personal responsibility encouraged, groups are capable of doing much more than they are usually asked to do.

Core Values

2008-07-20T20:49:00.000-04:00

Core Values

We embrace the following core values:

Honor the dignity of all children and families, and of their cultures.
Consider everyone an “expert” on their own experience.
Include youth, families, and communities as equal partners at all times.
Communicate with clear, non-jargon, non-acronym, and non-bureaucratic language.
Draw on peoples’ strengths, resilience, and resources.
Use data in an accurate way that is faithful to the art and science of public health.
Build public and political will for action.
Move from a paradigm of “eliminating disparities” to one of creating equity, regardless of race, ethnicity, income, gender, religion, geography, and nationality.
Recognize that behind every statistic and risk factor is a real human being with all the complexity, vulnerability, magnificence, and potential for good that is in each of us.
Stay relationship-centered. Encourage networks of social connectedness in promoting health and justice.

Vision and Goals

2008-07-20T20:45:00.002-04:00

Vision

Our vision is to bring the highest ideals of public health into the lives of children and families everywhere and to improve their health by:

1) Humanizing the worlds that they experience;

2) Changing how we think about public health to embrace every facet of their lives;

3) Creating forums for dialogue that lead to effective action on global health inequities; and

4) Educating and inspiring a new generation of public service leaders to carry on this work in the long term.

Goals

We seek to

1) Create equity and end MCH disparities by radical strengthening of the capacity of all concerned parties for participatory leadership.

2) Involve young people in all aspects of our operation, so as to educate and inspire new leadership in public health.

3) Set foundations for societal changes to make equity and justice in MCH a reality.

4) Challenge individual and organizational biases.

5) Respect all voices, including those historically marginalized.

6) Promote opportunities for shared learning.

Background and Purpose of the Center

2008-07-20T20:41:00.000-04:00

Purpose

Those of us invested in public health face global challenges in dealing with maternal and infant mortality, violence in all forms, obesity, mental illness, and other issues. Our objective is to create a world more humane and equitable for women and children. To make progress, we need broad participation of many stakeholders, which requires new forms of leadership. The Center for Humane Worlds (CHW) for Maternal and Child Health (MCH) intends to provide that leadership. The Center delivers collaborative planning services to people everywhere who care about future generations. It provides educational opportunities to those who want to learn and practice such leadership. Our method of choice is Future Search which has been used worldwide for 25 years to stimulate unprecedented action.

By this means we seek to unite stakeholders and serve as a catalyst for essential but previously unlikely partnerships. Our intention is to enable people to discover common ground for action that they did not realize they shared. Such discovery can lay the foundation for leadership needed to bring dignity, hope, and equity to women and children. We seek to move away from systems that thrive on pathology, medical diagnosis, and risk reduction. Instead, we envision systems that derive their power from resilience, trust, and community. Our species has a remarkable capacity for healing and cooperating for the common good. The purpose of CHW is to mobilize that capacity. In so doing, we equip a new generation of leaders with lifelong tools to actualize their ideals.

Public Health

Our purpose in public health, defined by the USA Institute of Medicine and World Health Organization, is to foster conditions that assure optimal health in mind, body, and spirit. We commit to ending health inequities and protecting human dignity. In MCH, we seek to change social conditions so that children experience humane worlds. Such worlds help meet basic needs and support their safety and well being.

Welcome To Our Site

2008-07-20T20:03:00.000-04:00

Hello World!
Welcome to the new Humane Worlds Center blog site!
Our hope is to create a space which will be updated regularly as the Center grows so that you can be aware of the center's ongoing work towards improving conditions for children to thrive in mind, body and spirit.

This site is meant to be a space for people to learn more about us, figure out how to get involved, and we hope for it to also be a space for open dialogue.

We would love your feed back!
To contact the director of the center, Dick Aronson, or his summer intern from Amherst College, Jodie Simms, please send an email to humaneworldscenter@gmail.com