Earlier this year, our CEO, Emily Campbell, mentioned the work that we are doing through the Community Reinvestment Collaborative Plan (CRCP), in collaboration with the Ohio Association of Health Plans, to reinvest money back into communities in Athens County and Cuyahoga County. This work required extensive travel throughout Cuyahoga County, where I listened to residents...
“Fast Car” and the poverty ties that bind us
The first time I heard a white man cover Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car, it wasn’t Luke Combs. It was last summer at a shopping center upscale enough to have a concert green and covered stage. My reaction was involuntary: “that man has absolutely no business singing that song.” Turned out the performance at the mall...
Racism as a Public Health Crisis: Examining Racism in Medical Journals
We’ve written about the steps that can be taken by institutions to help end racism as a public health crisis. One prevalent issue that must be addressed in that process is the failure to examine racism in medical journals and publish health research that reports on its impacts. Health Affairs published a report in 2021...
Eight Cleveland Community Champions to know in Black History Month
Placing an in-depth focus on community is one of my favorite tasks. Meeting people and learning about their efforts to make our collective lives better honestly feeds hope. In recognition of Black History Month, I invite you to meet some amazing Community Champions. There were no algorithms, in-depth searches, or analyses for this list. Our...
Village of Healing: A Beacon of Hope
Recently, a colleague reflected on her experience during our staff visit to the Village of Healing clinic, in Euclid, OH in November 2022. Village of Healing Center had just opened its doors earlier that year. Similar to her, I was in awe of the space and the important work that Da’Na Langford, MS, CNP and...
Buy Back the Block: uplifting Black neighborhoods
“Why don’t they care about their neighborhood?” A question quietly whispered while driving down a street with run down houses and boarded up stores. While that question looks at the current issues facing many neighborhoods in our state and nation, it doesn’t get to the root of the issue of how we got here. Who...
Black Grief During the Pandemic and the Importance of Healing
When I think about the COVID-19 pandemic, I recognize the great deal of hurt and pain of people not just in the United States, but around the world. The pandemic has impacted families, friends, and colleagues from all walks of life. As of the release of this article, over 935,000 Americans have lost their lives...
Traveling to Africa: Reclaiming our identity and expanding Black pride
What are the first images or words that come to your mind when someone says the word Africa? You may think of what you see in the media, like poverty, huts, jungles and animals. Some people would think that Africans live in trees, a stereotype that I have heard from Americans, which Africans joked that...
CROWN Act 101
This post has been updated to reflect changes made to the CROWN Act as of July 2023. For Black History Month 2022, I wrote about the Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair (CROWN) Act. The CROWN Act is a law that was introduced to prohibit race-based hair discrimination, which is the denial of...
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