Episodes

With the federal COVID-19 unemployment relief ending, and the paradox of high rates of unemployment coupled with millions of unfilled jobs, we’re joined by Quan Mai, Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Rutgers, to discuss the state of work in the US and across the globe. Join us as we discuss good jobs, bad jobs, and precarious-gig work. We chat about how the job market evolved historically and politically and the implications of precarious work for social inequality, adult tra...

With the Fall job market on the horizon, we’re joined by three guests, Drs Akilah Wise, Alana Inlow, and Alexis Santos-Lozada, who share their journeys navigating their professional careers while aiming to strike a balance with their personal identities, goals, and interests. Join us as we learn how these early-career scholars learned how to find their fit and follow their passions throughout their careers. This episode was envisioned and organized by the IAPHS Student Committee.

In the midst that is happening all around us in the United States right now, it is easy to lose sight of what is happening across the globe. Haiti is a country rich in history and culture that has experienced a great deal of misfortune, historically and contemporarily. Just in the last six weeks, there has been a presidential assassination, an earthquake and torrential storms all while rates of Covid-19 have surged. In this episode, we were joined by Dr. Lora Iannotti, a global health researcher...

Welcome back for another episode of Sick Individuals/ Sick Populations. In this episode, we were fortunate to be joined by Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield, the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor of Arts & Sciences and Vice Dean for Faculty Development and Diversity in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research examines how and why racial and gender inequality persists in professional occupations. Her most recent book, Flatlining: Race, Work, and Health Care in the New Economy, w...

On this episode of Sick Individuals/Sick Populations, we wrap up the inaugural season of our podcast. Join our hosts as they recap their favorite moments from the first season, reflect on what they’ve learned in conversation with our podcast guests, and preview what we have in store for Season 2.

One of the key determinants of health considered to drive health inequities is socioeconomic status. Many scholars, practitioners and policy makers believe that increases in socioeconomic status will eliminate health gaps, especially racial/ethnic inequities. However, the story is a lot more complicated than that. In this episode, we unpack some important nuances about the relationship between socioeconomic status and health with two leading population health researchers, Cindy Colen and Katrina...

One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, we reflect on the important ways population health scientists have contributed to the pandemic response by chatting with Drs Lindsey Leininger and Amanda Simanek, two members of the Those Nerdy Girls who lead Dear Pandemic website and social media platforms. Dear Pandemic uses social media to answer people’s pandemic-related questions, aiming to cut through the swirl of disinformation on the web with clear and concise communication. Join us as we learn how De...

We are just in the first few months of 2021 but there is already quite a bit to digest. On the heels of a year of racial reckoning with the punctuation of the January 6 insurrection, deep societal fractures have been revealed. While surprising to many Americans, for many people, especially the outstanding scholars who contributed to this episode, these recent events are products as a continual manifestation of the legacy of racism that undergirds the United States. If racial equity in health, so...

By the time of this recording, the COVID-19 pandemic has been raging on for just over a year. Although the arrival of effective vaccinations signals that we are headed towards the end of this unprecedented moment, we are likely only beginning to grapple with the ways in which the virus has fundamentally altered our society. One place where fallout from COVID-19 is already being actualized is academia. From stories on the ground, this pandemic has created a set of previously unimaginable challen...

Whether covering your face during a pandemic or developing policies that create equitable access to health promoting resources and healthcare, politics are involved. As we consider population level policies and practices capable improving the health and well-being of people around the globe, one of the biggest barriers is not funding. It’s political will. Unfortunately, it seems that our current political climate is toxic. We were fortunate to talk to Dr. Nadia Brown, Associate Professor of Poli...

At this stage of the pandemic, the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine is absolutely critical if we seek to return to any semblance of normalcy in the foreseeable future. Despite the development of multiple, highly effective vaccines, we have all been frustrated with the slow rollout as well as the inequitable dissemination of the vaccine to date. For this episode, we were very fortunate to be joined by Dr. Mati Htlatswayo Davis, an infectious disease specialist at Washington University and the Vete...

For population health scientists, community-research partnerships are often thought of as one avenue to build equity and social justice into research by working with communities to build the tools and resources to addresses health inequities. But how can we ensure that these partnerships work effectively, and what unique opportunities does community based research offer population health? In this episode we chat with the leaders of the Sunnyside Strong Collaborative in Houston, Felicia Jackson, ...

A structural understanding of racial inequalities has begun to take root across the U.S. Public health stakeholders, citizens activists, and lawmakers, at even the highest level of government, have indeed begun to consider that interventions to combat racial health inequity must be designed with systemic racism in mind. In this episode of Sick Individuals/Sick Populations, we speak with several scholars from the University of Michigan’s Racism Lab–a transdisciplinary collective at the forefront ...

Happy New Year! We are excited to share our first episode of 2021. We were fortunate to speak to the IAPHS President, Dr. Kathie Mullan Harris, and Conference Co-Chairs, Drs. Maggie Hicken and Hedy Lee, who stopped by to tell us about their plans for this year’s conference, themed Racism, Power, and Justice: Achieving Population Health Equity. This theme is highly relevant given the current events of the day. Dr. Hicken also shared information with us about the upcoming joint IAPHS and Universit...

Increasingly, researchers and policymakers are designing place typologies to understand distributions of place characteristics that influence population health and to inform policy response options. This growth is fueled in part by expanded access to small area data and the availability of new statistical approaches. By identifying how sociodemographic, economic, and population characteristics align across places, typologies can elucidate patterns in what can otherwise be highly complex matrices...

Recent outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases such as measles have heightened concern over suboptimal vaccination rates. Undervaccination may be due to access barriers, hesitancy over the safety and effectiveness of vaccination, or both. A variety of strategies exist to encourage greater vaccine uptake, including increasing access to vaccination services, improving vaccine education among youth and parents, providing incentives such as financial bonuses to parents with up-to-date children, an...

The relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and health is very robust. In this episode, we discuss the role of SES on health outcomes, particularly the pathways and mechanisms that link education to a variety of health outcomes. Join us to hear from Jarron Saint Onge, Anna Zajacova, Taylor Hargrove and Tarlise Townsend, experts in the area of education and health, as they highlight findings from their innovative research to better explain the education-health gradient. The topics discuss...

This episode brings forth interdisciplinary discussions at the intersections of public health, history, and Latina/o/x communities. We want to explicitly link events and movements in US Latinx history to current public health issues. For this panel, experts in Latinx history and public health are paired to discuss ways in which historical events set precedence and foundations for continued and ongoing disparities in health for generations of Latinx. As such, we hope to bridge a massive intellect...

Population health scientists have been probing questions related to race, place, and health for decades, and we know that where one lives is consequential for a whole host of health outcomes. But what are the mechanisms by which place shapes health? How do we define place and measure neighborhoods? Can we leverage multiple measures of social and environmental characteristics to quantify “healthy” neighborhoods? Finally, since race is Inextricably linked with neighborhoods, how do we clarify the ...

Recent events in the United States have placed race and racism at the center of the national conversation. Highlighted, perhaps most notably, by drastic racial inequities in COVID-19 outcomes and several high-profile killings of black civilians by law enforcement, systems of racism that have characterized the U.S. since its inception have become broadly visible, even to those who once might have ignored said fundamental structure. Rich and longstanding population health research, which demonstra...

Billed as an election for the soul of the nation, the 2020 election was pivotal and contentious. There were more votes cast than ever before and the results reveal a deeply polarized country. Join us on Sick Individuals, Sick Populations as our co-hosts discuss the results of the presidential election and its population health implications.

Political economies of health are not only national in scale; they are reproduced at the local level. Policies and practices, created and enforced by local government entities, determine who is welcomed, who is counted, and who holds power. This session draws on the coupled disciplines of urban planning and social work – two fields tasked with protecting local community-level health and well-being – to examine how who is welcomed, who is counted, and who holds power determines health outcomes. T...

At its core, the field of global health strives to create more equitable relationships between people and places around the world. However, the contemporary global health discourse lacks critical consideration of the historical background, political context, and disproportionate power dynamics of the current, Western-dominated system. Nearly every aspect of global health from agenda-setting to financing, funding, data collection, publishing, and research dissemination is dominated by the Global ...

Due to the current pandemic, #IAPHS2020 was held as a virtual conference. Join us to hear from conference co-chairs, Dr. Jennifer Karas Montez and Dr. Shannon Monnat to recap the conference held September 30 – October 2, 2020.