Building Healthy Communities

The support of the Aetna Foundation for the “Addressing the Health and Health-Related Social Needs of Homeless Youth” project gave the Weitzman Institute, an AcademyHealth organizational member, the unique opportunity to collaborate with young people experiencing housing insecurity during COVID to examine the web of factors contributing to homelessness in New Britain, Connecticut, through photovoice, a community based participatory research approach that uses photography and storytelling.

Effective social determinants of health programming requires flexibility, agility, and a continuous improvement mindset to transition to whole-person care.

Following a joint convening with the American Public Health Association and key public health leaders, AcademyHealth outlines priority areas for public health services and systems research across the following domains: preparedness and resilience; structure; performance; workforce; data and technology; and financing and economics.

At a June 2021 AcademyHealth workshop, supported by Blue Shield of California Foundation, public health officials shared their on-the-ground experiences of using disadvantage indices to locate COVID-19 testing sites, allocate vaccines, set up vaccination sites, and conduct community outreach to overcome vaccine hesitancy.

For more than two decades the federal government deterred research into this leading cause of preventable death. A new report estimates the cost of closing the knowledge gap.