Healthbeat

What I’ve learned as a nurse about the power of human connection in public health

2026-01-27T15:18:32+00:00

This story was part of Healthbeat’s live storytelling event, “Aha Moments in Public Health,” held Nov. 18 at Powerhouse Arena bookstore in Brooklyn. Watch the full show here. Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free New York newsletter here.

In the weeks since learning of this opportunity to share stories on community and public health, I discussed with a few close friends how I might attempt to do justice to themes that drive much of how I experience the world. One such friend gently reminded me I had already said most of it to her in our conversations. This is an attempt to share the essence of those exchanges.

The scope of public health can make it seem as though individuals have little effect. Then a moment will remind me what underpins all of it are the individuals themselves – their stories, and everything that led to whatever moment we are in, or decision we are trying to make.

Holding space for genuine connection between those of us working in these spaces and those we serve is essential, because outside these roles, we are all members of a shared idea of community. Through these moments of human connection, people become three-dimensional. Every time we remember and feel this truth, we push back against the false dichotomies of “you versus me” and “us versus them.”

My insights rarely come in a grand way. They present more as blips across time and place. A conversation in New York connects to moments in Michigan, and experiences in India will have a throughline back to another in New York.

One day while volunteering at a food bank in New York City this past summer, I found myself alongside an objectively put together individual. This artist by vocation seemed imbued with confidence and humor. Over hours of shared work and conversation, she revealed her grief over losing a parent when young, her struggles with self-image and eating disorders, and how generational cycles that shaped her family were entangled with larger societal messages about how one’s worth is evaluated. Beneath a surface of style and security was another human being looking for peace while navigating pain and hope.

A few years ago, as part of the team at a no-cost community health clinic in rural Michigan, I was witness week after week to the various needs and truths of those utilizing the clinic’s services. Many patients worked full-time yet could not consistently afford the cost of medications for chronic conditions like diabetes. Chatting with an established patient at the clinic, who never complained if there was a long wait and would stay after his appointment to continue conversing with office staff, I learned over time these moments were one of his main sources of social interaction. Shadowing a bilingual provider and seeing how her ability to communicate fluently, and in a way that developed rapport and trust, revealed additional and relevant layers of a patient’s complex health history, refining their care plan.

When last year I visited relatives in India after years away, I was reminded again of the universality of humans’ desire for self-determination, belonging, safety, and understanding. Sometimes it took different forms within tradition, religion, or social systems, but the essence was the same.

Soon after returning to New York from India, I was part of the care team for an adolescent patient hospitalized for complications related to anorexia. Through many 12-hour shifts together, I came to appreciate her pride in her family’s traditions and spirituality, her desire to honor them while also not being subsumed by them. When her parents came to visit, I witnessed her joy at seeing them, as well as her pain for how their love and despair often echoed the very messages she identified as part of the cycle she was trying to break.

Often, connection seems like a luxury our health care system cannot afford. On the surface, it appears not to fit with health care metrics related to efficiency. But again and again, as a nurse, a volunteer, and a member of this shared community, I have come to see that while science and knowledge give us tools, it is our interconnectedness with other beings that gives us purpose.

One form of that is in the stories we tell, and the space we hold for one another. When we lose sight of this, every protocol, policy, and system we design is similarly limited, as it misses core aspects of what it means to not only exist but have a chance to thrive.

Vidya Thirumoorthi has worked as a nurse in Detroit and, most recently, in New York City at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital. She holds degrees in nursing and psychology from the University of Michigan and Wayne State University. Her interests include global health and health equity, with a focus on adolescents and emerging adults.

What working in a clinic in rural India taught me about health care

2026-01-26T16:13:01+00:00

This story was part of Healthbeat’s live storytelling event, “Aha Moments in Public Health,” held Nov. 3 at Manuel’s Tavern in Atlanta. Watch the full show here. Sign up to receive Healthbeat’s free Atlanta newsletter here.

In 2016 and 2017, I worked at a hospital and community health program in rural eastern India. That revolutionized my view of what health care could be like.

Everything in the system was geared to serve the patient: Signs over offices and paperwork included pictograms for the mostly illiterate people we served. This proved so effective that many of our village health workers successfully completed their work without ever learning to read.

We economized on everything, using mosquito nets for hernia repairs and washing gloves with bleach so they could be reused.

We didn’t have much – and it was by no means perfect – but what we did have was care; respect; compassion – all built into a community health system that actually served its community.

When I came back to Atlanta, I worked in hospital emergency rooms. Here, we had state-of-the-art equipment, highly trained staff, air-conditioning, and gloves galore. But something felt different to me. Patients and doctors spoke English, but talked right past one another. Doctors were scolded for taking too long with patients. Psychiatric patients and others lingered for days because we could find no place to send them.

And worst of all, we were all rowing in different directions. The doctors answered to one authority; the nurses to another; social workers and chaplains appeared and then disappeared; and no one seemed to care about the environmental services team, who worked so hard to keep the hospital clean.

Spending time at clinics like this one in rural Chhattisgarh in eastern India helped me rethink how health care is delivered.

I was disheartened that my hometown, a public health capital, couldn’t provide the kind of compassionate care I saw being provided in rural India. Yes, our patients were sick, but so was our system. For more than a year, I took all this in and bottled up my emotions, mostly, my anger and sadness.

Finally, I had an aha moment: I put down those bitter emotions and picked up my pen, pledging to write about what I knew. That was more than five years ago, and while I can’t claim to have fixed our broken system, I am proud to to be here, still writing about health in my hometown, learning from all of you, and carrying with me the compassion and can-do spirit that I learned thousands of miles away in rural India.

Born and raised in Atlanta, Rebecca Grapevine is back home as a Healthbeat local reporter. She has a Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan and in her travels learned to speak Hindi (nearly) fluently. Read her Healthbeat work here. Contact Rebecca at rgrapevine@healthbeat.org.

‘I never thought I deserved something so valuable’: How health kits are empowering birth care in New York and abroad

2026-01-21T14:58:37+00:00

I’m going to share with you two “aha” moments – both revolving around the lifesaving toolkits that we at Saving Mothers distribute to pregnant women. It’s a story that highlights both the shared experiences of giving birth, no matter where on Earth you live, but also the wide discrepancies in available birth care.

I’ll start here at home in New York City, where Saving Mothers has been giving out “mPOWHER” kits.

These are maternal health kits that contain resources that women need to take charge of their maternal health care and understand their health risks in pregnancy. They also contain cards that are meant to help them talk to their doctors and nurses in the hospitals and clinics so they can make sure that they are seen and heard.

We know that racial disparity in maternal health is very high here in New York City. So these kits are specifically aimed toward addressing racism and disparity, making sure women can advocate for themselves, get their needs met, and frame their questions in a way that they can get quick answers and thorough answers.

The kits have these resources, including a blood-pressure cuff, a Fitbit, some venodyne stockings to address blood clots. They target the top causes of maternal death here in New York City, that’s where we focused the kit.

These kits cost about $125 because they include a lot of nice resources, like the Fitbit, the blood-pressure cuff, a beautiful diaper bag for the mother, and some other giveaways. They are nice kits that we put together, that we do by hand, that we have our teams pack.

The goal of the kit was to improve maternal health and improve their odds in pregnancy. We give it out to the women, and we asked for feedback. And one mom I remember, and this was an “aha” moment for me: She opened the kit, she looked at all the resources, and we asked her about her feedback, like, how did she think that the kit was helpful? And she said, “When I opened this kit, I just started crying, because no one has ever given me anything so beautiful and so valuable. And I never thought that I deserve something so valuable.”

That was her feedback. It was an “aha” moment for me as a doctor, as an OB-GYN, because I’m thinking she’s going to give me feedback about how she used the blood-pressure cuff, or how she used the resources. But she was so touched by the fact that someone packed this kit for her and that it had valuable contents – it had a Fitbit, it had things that she knew had some value – and she just loved it so much.

From Kenya to New York: How a global nonprofit is addressing local maternal health needs

She said, “I brought my mPOWHER kit everywhere. I brought it to every appointment. I did everything that was in it. I felt so lucky to have such a valuable kit.” I thought that was really, really interesting and really telling about how mothers, especially underserved mothers, those who live in shelters, or in areas of the city where they don’t have a lot of access, how much they truly do value this. She could see that we put a lot of thought and effort into it, too. We put little handwritten notes in it, like “You can do this.” We have a lot of inspirational messaging that we include.

Through the feedback that the mothers in New York have given us, we’ve also added a mental health component to the kit. Now the kit has a journal, and that journal has inspirational words and stories for mothers along the lines of “You are valuable. You are important. You are amazing. You can complete this pregnancy, have a baby.” We have inspirational words to get them through pregnancy and postpartum, as well.

That one helped us understand the mental health piece, which I think is something that needs more attention. Now our $125 kit includes that. It includes a mental health card and a wellness card and a journal, and it actually incorporates a lot of the feedback that we got from our mothers and the focus groups.

I’ve learned other things from those focus groups, too, like that blood-pressure cuff that we give women – the woman doesn’t just use it for herself in pregnancy. It’s actually become a family unifying thing. They do everyone’s blood pressure, the in-laws come over, the parents come over. Everyone’s getting their blood pressure checked now, and a lot of these families are larger. That’s also a really great downstream effect of habit, giving people resources and making sure they know how to use them.

These are low-cost, high-impact kits, the “mPOWHER” kits that we’ve used in New York. But we have another kit, probably our longest-standing kit that we created when we started Saving Mothers in 2009 – the clean, safe birth kit.

In Africa, women must bring own birthing supplies to hospital

What I have learned about birth in many of our countries that we’ve served in many parts of Africa, specifically many of the hospitals there, is that mothers, when they want to deliver, they cannot come into the hospital, even a major hospital in a big city, like in rural West Pokot, Kenya, without bringing their own birth supplies.

A laboring woman will come to the hospital, and she will be turned away for delivery because she doesn’t have her clean birth supplies, like cord clamps, scissors to cut the umbilical cord, gloves for the doctor or nurse, a clean surface, soap – some of these basic tools that women and their families in very poor, very underserved regions of the world, have to go and find and purchase and come back with.

I didn’t realize when we first created the clean birth kit that the hospitals also needed the resources, that women were actually being asked to bring their own clean birth kit. That was an “aha” moment.

The clean birth kit was meant for the over 80% of women that deliver babies at home in most regions of the world. In most of the world, there aren’t a lot of trained OB-GYNs. There are whole countries that have a handful of trained OB-GYNs. Back when we were working in Liberia years ago, 2009, 2010, there were like three. The vast majority of women around the world are being delivered by birth attendants or midwives with varying levels of training. Some places they have some training; other places, not as much.

They’re called anything from traditional birth attendants to midwives. But they lack training, and obviously they’re not surgically trained – any of them – to be able to deal with urgent, emergent and C-section type delivery. So these clean birth kits were meant to be a resource for women at home, so that we could promote sanitary birth, so we could lower the risk of infection to the newborn. So that the mother had a provider that was using gloves. So that there was a clean surface. So that the attendant washes their hands, at least with Purell, even if there was no running water.

Our safe birth kit cost $15, and we’ve sent tens of thousands of these kits around the world since we started. They go everywhere, from clinics, directly to community health workers and birth attendants, especially in the areas where we train them, like Guatemala and Kenya. Then we empower them with the kits, as well. It’s been really amazing to see how much these kits are needed everywhere.

The $15 includes shipping. We bundle that into the cost because we want them to be accessible and low cost. Our big goal is always to make all of our things low cost. It’s about creating things and streamlining programming so that the highest number of women have access, so the cost is always important.

People need our kits everywhere. They need them, based on the culture, the circumstance, the issues that bring the highest risk of maternal death. Those causes are different in different communities. But the need is the same: for all women, everywhere, to have a safe, clean birth.

Dr. Taraneh Shirazian is the founder and president of Saving Mothers, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization founded in 2009. Saving Mothers is dedicated to eradicating preventable maternal deaths and birth-related complications in the developing world. She is also a practicing gynecologic surgeon and associate professor at NYU Langone Medical Center and director of NYU Langone’s Center for Fibroid Care.

Her story was told at Healthbeat’s event by Re Perry, program coordinator for Saving Mothers who earned her MPH at NYU.

How Emory’s Vaccine Dinner Club helps scientists connect in tough times

2026-01-20T21:42:13+00:00

The downstream echo of my “aha” moment in public health is the reason I was late arriving for tonight’s program.

Here’s the background. In 1981, Dr. Jim Curran led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention task force that investigated the very first cases of a new disease that we all later came to know as AIDS. I joined the field as an AIDS community and medical educator five years later, and 12 years after that, in 1998, I was recruited from the Emory School of Medicine to the Rollins School of Public Health by Curran, who was by then serving as the school’s dean, to help him start a National Institutes of Health-funded Center for AIDS Research at Emory.

At one of our first meetings with organizational shareholders from across campus, someone floated an idea that CFAR and the Emory Vaccine Center could collaborate on hosting an evening seminar series to raise our mutual profiles.

“That’s a great idea!,” I chirped up. “We could serve food too and call it the Vaccine Dinner Club!”

Instantly the room erupted with laughter, but as soon as Curran handed me the job of designing, organizing, and running the new initiative, that is exactly what I did.

Having been told that a seminar on HIV vaccines at Emory might draw as many as 30 or 40 scientists, I booked an appropriately sized room and sent out an email to a couple of colleagues asking for their help in advertising our first gathering. In that email, which I begged recipients to treat like a chain letter, I asked people to write me back directly if they wanted to attend the VDC’s first meeting, which would begin with networking over wine and cheese, followed by a science presentation given by Emory Vaccine Center Director Dr. Rafi Ahmed, and end with a casual buffet dinner.

Return emails began to trickle and then pour in. This shouldn’t have been all that surprising because this was during a period in history in which you weren’t allowed to even serve coffee at a federally funded meeting, and here I was offering free wine, cheese, and dinner. But I was still floored when, by the time the Vaccine Dinner Club met for the first time a month later, on Jan. 6, 1999, more than 300 people had registered to attend.

As you may know, the CDC is a separate nation-state located on the Emory campus and, to this day, I swear I felt the ground rumbling gently beneath my feet as wave after wave of CDC employees came thundering down Clifton Road on foot, apparently at a dead run, in the direction of food-and-drink-enabled science.

My gratification turned to panic, though, when it became clear to the milling crowd that somebody (OK, me) had forgotten that wine bottles must be opened before their contents can be consumed.

Fortunately, it turns out that the VDC membership has self-selected for resourcefulness from the very beginning and that a surprisingly large number of people carry corkscrews in their pockets and purses.

In almost no time at all, an impromptu bucket brigade of meeting attendees, led by biostatistics luminary Dr. Betz Halloran, formed to uncrate, open, pour, and distribute 300+ glasses of wine. The rest of the evening was fabulous as well, and I really think that that night set the stage for thinking of the VDC truly as a club, not a seminar series.

But, believe it or not, that wasn’t my “aha” moment.

And it still wasn’t my “aha” moment 21 years and almost 200 programs later when the pandemic happened and the VDC had to go online.

Taking dinner club to Zoom opened it to more people

I still vividly remember stepping up to the podium on March 4, 2020, to open what later turned out to be our last in-person meeting for four years. The talk was titled Covid-19: What We Know, What We Suspect, What We Fear and starred Dr. Jay Butler, deputy director for infectious diseases at the CDC.

In those days, the VDC’s average meeting attendance was around 200, but I have no idea how many people were there that night. Seriously, I don’t because to maintain plausible deniability with the fire marshal I stopped counting at 550. But let’s just say that we were in a two-level auditorium and it was standing room only.

When I stepped behind the podium and looked at that absolute sea of faces, I put down the meeting-opening cowbell I had been ringing and, without thinking, blurted out:

“Dr. Butler’s talk will include an analysis of Covid-19 super-spreader events. And speaking of super-spreader events ... would everyone in this extremely crowded, windowless room please behave responsibly and hold your breath for the next 60 minutes?”

Mike Luckovich, editorial cartoonist at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, drew this sketch of Dr. Kimbi Hagen, the founding director of two international science-focused dinner clubs.

But my “aha, this is why I do it” moment didn’t even occur then. That came later, after the VDC had entered the Zoom era and my fear that the club would collapse in the absence of free wine proved to be unfounded. In fact, to my puzzlement, membership requests and registration attendance absolutely exploded in size during the pandemic to the point that I began opening each meeting with a slide showing the ever growing list of countries around the world from which any given month’s attendees were Zooming in.

And then one day it all made sense. I was reading registration form comments for the upcoming meeting and one said “thank you, Thank You, THANK YOU Kimbi for keeping the VDC going. My job is to increase Covid vaccine uptake in a part of the country that believes Covid is a hoax. I absolutely LIVE for these monthly opportunities to relax and spend time, even if only online, with my tribe, The People Who Get It. The VDC makes me feel less alone.”

That was my “aha” moment. That was when I realized that for some people, maybe many, attending VDC meetings was no longer simply about having access to cool science, it was now also, and perhaps more importantly, about having access to a safe space where — in a world that was increasingly making the trashing of public health and public health professionals into a full-time job — they could feel seen, heard, supported, and not so alone.

Now there are two: Vaccine Dinner Club IRL and online

I am a public health professional like most of you here, but it turns out that my public is you — the people who make public health happen. I do what I do, so that you can do what you do.

That insight was re-crystalized for me post-pandemic when, after pausing the VDC for the entirety of the 2024-25 season, I was absolutely inundated with hundreds of thank you messages when I restarted the club this past September.

As a result, when the VDC’s two major sponsors notified me that they want VDC meetings to scale back from monthly to quarterly and revert to in-person only, which would restrict meeting attendance to people in Atlanta, I became acutely aware of the sense of abandonment and exclusion that that might create among the membership.

My solution was to start a second club. With sponsorship from the Rollins School of Public Health, the new club only meets in the months that the Vaccine Dinner Club does not meet and addresses public health issues that are not vaccine specific.

Because I outsourced the naming of the club to the members and we are currently narrowing down possibilities for a final vote, the new org is currently officially known as the As-Yet-Unnamed Dinner Club, or UDC. Membership in the UDC, which didn’t even exist 2 months ago, is 6,711, which is almost 1,300 more members than the Vaccine Dinner Club took 27 years to accrue. That speaks very strongly about the continued need for an organization like this.

Our inaugural meeting of the As-Yet-Unnamed Dinner Club on Oct. 1 was titled Public Health Chaos: What It Means for America, and starred three long-time VDC members, Drs. Demetre Daskalakis, Deb Houry, and Dan Jernigan — aka “D3” — the three senior leaders who resigned from the CDC after Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired CDC Director Susan Monarez.

Almost 2,600 people attended that first meeting, including more than 100 who have retroactively registered after the meeting was over, just to receive a link to meeting recording.

The second meeting of the UDC, Science Under Siege: What You Can Do About It, took place this evening. It featured superstar author Dr. Peter Hotez and is why I was late getting here tonight. Because I couldn’t bear the thought of missing out on your stories, not to mention Healthbeat’s first birthday party, I hosted this month’s UDC meeting from my laptop here at Manuel’s Tavern. You can retroactively register for that meeting if you want to hear Hotez’s thoughts about how we can fight anti-science.

Why there’s hope for public health in America

Speaking of anti-science … before ending my story, I want to read a few sentences that I included in my email opening registration for this evening’s UDC meeting. They originally came from an email to one of the UDC members and spring from conversations I have been having with multiple VDC and UDC members who have reached out to talk about how distraught they are, as I am, as we all are, over the deliberate damage that is being done to public health in America right now. This is what I wrote:

“I keep reminding myself that perhaps the only advantage to being as old as I am is that I have lived a long time. Including growing up in the Jim Crow South. Which means that I have real-time memories of cross burnings, segregated schools, whites-only everything, and the Tuskegee study.

“Which also means that I know, from my own lived experience, that we as a country are fully capable of righting great wrongs that are inflicted on us by our government because we have done so before. There is precedent for it in my own lifetime.

“So I have to believe that we will get through this because we can get through this because we have gotten through even worse. And successfully come out on the other side.”

Thank you.

Dr. Kimbi Hagen is the founding director of two international science-focused dinner clubs. She has been a faculty member in the Department of Behavioral, Social, and Health Education Sciences at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory since 1998.

How one NYC rat warrior finds pride in restoring public spaces

2026-01-13T14:41:28+00:00

Prior to joining the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Pest Control Program in August 2023, I wore many hats in my journey. Over the years, I have worked at a supermarket, as an EMT, and at the post office. While all of these are different, they all share one commonality – community engagement.

That’s why when I joined the NYC Health Department, I knew I’d be part of something important. But I didn’t realize just how deeply it would resonate with me.

I work in the neighborhood rat reduction unit, and one of my favorite parts of the job is visiting parks like Jackie Robinson Park, St. Nicholas Park, and Riverside Park during my monthly checks. When I first started, these parks were riddled with rat activity. Burrows were easy to spot, and signs of infestation were everywhere.

But over time, I noticed something remarkable: The rats were disappearing.

Now I sometimes have to search just to find evidence. That shift didn’t happen overnight; it’s the result of a lot of hard work and longstanding partnerships with our sister agencies, such as Sanitation and Parks. From our rat contraceptive pilot study to our community engagement efforts, I get to play a small but meaningful role by collecting field data.

While this may seem like a simple task, the information that is gathered helps my team, and my co-workers and I brainstorm new strategies and refine our approaches to rat mitigation across the city.

This work is not only about reducing the rat sightings but helping New Yorkers reclaim public spaces. It’s incredibly rewarding to know that my contributions are helping to shape real solutions for our city.

One of the most fulfilling parts of this work has been getting to know the people who care for these parks every day, the gardeners and extermination teams. Each month, I’ve had the chance to build relationships with them, learn from their insights, and share updates on our progress. They’ve taught me how to spot subtle signs of rat activity, and I’ve been able to offer data that help guide their on-the-ground efforts. It’s a true partnership, and it’s made every visit feel like a shared mission.

One moment that really stuck with me happened during a check-in at Jackie Robinson Park. A longtime resident approached me and said, “I see you out here every month. Whatever you’re doing — it’s working. My grandkids are back on the swings.”

That was my “aha” moment. I realized that our work isn’t just about controlling rats — it’s about restoring public spaces, rebuilding trust, and protecting the health of New Yorkers.

I’m proud to be part of this team and this mission. Every data point, every park visit, every conversation with a gardener, exterminator, or community member reminds me that public health is about people — and even the smallest actions can lead to big change.

This has led me to pursue my degree in public health – which I hope to use in in order to make an even greater difference in the lives of New Yorkers.

Nadia Shepherd is a community associate at the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Neighborhood Rat Reduction Unit, where she focuses on rat mitigation, zoonotic disease surveillance, and public health outreach. She is also a student, pursuing a bachelor of science degree in public health and plans to continue with a master’s in health policy and management.

HIV work in Kenya showed me the powerful impact of treating a whole population

2026-01-12T15:03:39+00:00

I embodied the cliché that drives many people to become doctors: I wanted a career that was both deeply impactful and also really interesting. And I made it. I graduated from the medical school at Temple University and then completed my residency in, um, “war-torn” Portland, Oregon.

Although as a teenager, I’d been aware of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s investigative work during the 1976 Legionnaires’ disease outbreak in Philadelphia, it was during residency that I truly began to understand public health. The general concept was familiar — impacting health — but instead of working with one patient at a time, public health offered the chance to impact entire populations simultaneously.

After residency, I joined the CDC’s Epidemic Intelligence Service. I found myself in Pakistan, evaluating the validity of survey questions on immunization rates, and later on rooftops in Los Angeles, sampling water from cooling towers for the now-infamous Legionella bacteria. After EIS, I returned to clinical medicine to complete my infectious diseases specialty training and was immersed in the rapidly evolving world of HIV treatment.

A decade later, I landed my best job ever — working for the CDC to help establish HIV treatment clinics in Kenya. In Kisumu, in western Kenya, where I lived with my family, 1 in 4 adults had HIV infection. Almost all hospitalized adults were HIV positive. When we arrived in 2001, coffin makers were thriving. Our research programs had to hire 125% of needed field staff because so many people were dying on the job.

The world had finally begun to realize that HIV treatment needed to be offered in the hardest hit parts of the world. With initial seed funding from the CDC, followed by a major grant from Columbia University’s School of Public Health, then the Global Fund and the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief – PEPFAR – my job was to visit clinic after clinic with my Ministry of Health colleagues, asking whether they wanted to establish HIV treatment services. When they voiced concerns about lacking resources or expertise, I could say, “I can offer both.”

As PEPFAR started, we had to secure the drugs. The contracting office put us in a bind — they’d finalize the contract to secure essential drugs and supplies from the mission — but only if we could secure signatures from six board members scattered all over Kenya over a weekend. My colleague, John, took eastern Kenya, I took the west. With a CDC driver, off I went. I had the easier job. All of the board members were bishops, but two of mine were Anglican, meaning they had wives — who were easier to find, and who led us to their husband board members.

Cellphone coverage was limited, and the roads were rough, but by the end of the weekend, John and I had both secured our share of the needed signatures. To the people who’d been asking “when are the drugs coming,” I could soon say “they are here.”

Before HIV treatment was made available in western Kenya, many furniture manufacturers turned to making coffins.

I had lived through the transformation of HIV in the United States — from a death sentence to a manageable chronic illness. Now, I had the privilege of witnessing that transformation again, on a massive scale. By the time my family returned to the United States in 2005, 65,000 people in Kenya were on treatment. That’s a small fraction of the number who have since initiated care.

But that early period was transformative. Coffin makers returned to building furniture. Ambulances stopped serving as full-time hearses. Weekends, once dominated by funerals, reclaimed their hold on dance parties and weddings.

Taxi drivers in Kenya are a great source of wisdom. During my frequent trips to Nairobi, I often asked for their perspectives. Every one of them had been touched by HIV — through a sibling, a spouse, or their own diagnosis. Many had faced initial reluctance to get tested or seek treatment. But in overcoming stigma and barriers, they found a return to normalcy — and a deep gratitude to the World Health Organization and the United States.

The effects of establishing HIV programs began to ripple outward, strengthening the health system. That trust meant we were often the first called when new threats emerged — whether aflotoxicosis from poorly stored corn, or a hemorrhagic fever.

So maybe not so much an “aha” moment, but a quiet recognition: Focused programs can build immense goodwill. And I had the great privilege of being one small part of that.

Dr. Barbara Marston is an infectious diseases physician who retired from the CDC in 2022 after a 28-year federal career primarily focused on international health. She had leadership roles in emergency responses (Ebola in West Africa and the international component of the Covid response). Since retiring, she’s traveling and supporting protection of endangered amphibians and native plants. She is the co-founder and the coordinator of a CDC advocacy group, CDC Alumni and Friends.

‘Aha’ moment in public health: Building relationships before the next outbreak

2026-01-06T14:39:35+00:00

In July 2015, I stood in front of a packed auditorium in the South Bronx. People were wedged shoulder to shoulder on folding chairs. Another hundred or so crowded the hallway outside, many trying to squeeze in.

I came there to talk about facts. They came there to talk about injustice. That was the night I learned that relationships always come first, and facts come second.

The town hall was organized by the Bronx Borough president to discuss a large outbreak of Legionnaires’ Disease. Legionnaires’ disease is a severe pneumonia caused by bacteria that grow in water. One common source is cooling towers. They sit on rooftops and release a mist that can carry bacteria hundreds of yards through the air. This outbreak had already sickened dozens of people in the South Bronx, and the numbers were rising each day.

I sat in the front of the room. I felt prepared.

I was wearing my favorite suit. Charcoal gray, the J. Crew Ludlow type, similar to the ones our new mayor wears. Sure, it was not the most appropriate choice for a hot summer day. But it was appropriate for my goal that evening: to project credibility, authority, and trust.

I also carried the tools of the public health trade. Maps. Figures. And, most important, the confidence that the best epidemiologists, microbiologists, and environmental health experts in the city had gathered the data, crunched the numbers, and used this to contain the threat. I believed that if I explained the data clearly enough, people would leave reassured.

That is not what happened.

I started the way the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had trained me. First, describe the disease, its cause, how it spreads, and how it gets treated. Next, describe the investigation. I showed a map of cases and explained that the pattern pointed to something that had been in the air. I told the room that we had identified several contaminated cooling towers, that one of them was the most likely source of the outbreak, and that we had ordered the contaminated towers cleaned.

The air was now safe to breathe.

When I stopped talking, I scanned the room. People’s heads shook from side to side in disagreement. They turned to their neighbors and scowled. Hands shot up. People shouted over one another.

I felt confused. Had I not explained the facts clearly enough? Maybe I should just repeat it with a little different phrasing?

A woman’s voice rose from the back. She spoke sharply and forcefully, and it stopped everyone else from talking, “Why is the outbreak only happening in the Bronx? Why is it always happening here. In our community.”

I felt the power rush out of my suit. It was now constricting me. My palms were sweating, and my black leather shoes were weighing me down.

I had not come prepared to answer that question.

When I get flustered, I don’t stop to think. Or to listen. I just start talking. And then talk some more.

I kept repeating that the air was safe, that the water was safe, that we had fixed the problem. Those were the facts. But the facts weren’t quelling anyone’s anger.

This is the moment that stays with me. That moment when I realized the facts are not enough.

By the time I got to that town hall, I was confident we had found and cleaned the most likely source of the outbreak: a cooling tower on top of a boutique hotel near where we were speaking that night. So, when I said the air was safe, I meant it.

When they heard me say that, they heard something very different.

They heard government saying, “Just calm down. No need to get all worked up.”

They heard a system that had failed to protect them in the past now asking them to trust that this time was different. They heard the long history of neglect that shaped their daily lives well before this outbreak started.

In this community, where chronic disease, environmental pollution, violence, and racism are fixtures of daily life, this outbreak felt like yet another insult. Yet another unfair injury.

Why does this always happen here?

Why is our neighborhood the one that always suffers?

Why should we believe you now?

I came to talk about pathogens and probabilities. They came to talk about fairness and dignity. They wanted to know whether their lives truly counted as much as everyone else’s.

I realized that I had walked into that room thinking my job was to lower fear by explaining risk. What I had not understood, until that night, was that my job was to feel their outrage and connect with them at an emotional level.

The anger in that room was not fundamentally about risks or the facts of the case. It was about the relationship between the city government and this community and their outrage at the way they had been treated in this relationship.

Outrage is shaped as much by history as it is by acute hazards. Communities react to threats based on the stress they already carry, the inequities they already endure, and the ways institutions have treated them long before the first person became sick in this outbreak.

What I learned that night is simple but often overlooked: If you want people to trust you in a crisis, get to know them before the crisis.

As public health officials, we cannot focus only technical excellence. We must focus equally on our relationships with people and communities.

If we wait until an outbreak to learn how people live, what they love, what they fear, and how government has failed them in the past, then we will be speaking past them at the exact moment we need to be speaking with them.

In public health, relationships come first, and facts come second.

Dr. Jay K. Varma is a special contributor to Healthbeat, sharing his expertise from a long career in public health. As a physician and epidemiologist, he is an expert in the prevention and control of infectious diseases who has served as a public health official in New York City.

How my own medical mystery led to a career in scientific research

2026-01-05T17:26:17+00:00

Days after my 18th birthday, I had a seizure in a lecture hall of 300 people. My introduction to Clemson University and collegiate life involved an ER trip and a big unanswered question: What caused the seizure?

Afterward, my health began to decline. My heart was constantly racing out of control, and I would get dizzy and start sweating profusely, occasionally passing out. I was severely fatigued, and my body ached all over.

I bounced between specialists, had every test you can think of, and left each appointment with more questions than answers.

Then one night while scrolling through Twitter (as one does when they’re desperate for distraction), I came across a lab at the Medical University of South Carolina researching the mechanisms of hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, also known as hEDS, a genetic connective tissue disorder.

The collection of symptoms I was reading about sounded suspiciously like what I was living through. Not only was the team in Charleston conducting research, but they were looking for interns — interns who had hEDS.

Most primary care physicians are unfamiliar with hEDS. The average delay between symptom onset and diagnosis is over 10 years. On top of that, hEDS is the only subtype of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome that does not have testing available for known causal genes. That means it is both an “invisible disability” and an unsolved puzzle for the medical community.

I had no diagnosis at the time, but I reached out anyway. I asked if I could still apply, even though my condition had not been confirmed. After I interviewed, it took them just seven minutes to offer me the position.

That summer, I moved to Charleston. I spent my days doing research and learning about hEDS, and through the incredible mentors I met there, I finally got my diagnosis confirmed.

At the end of the summer, my mentor and the team sat me down for a meeting — not to discuss the data I was working with, but to persuade me to pursue a PhD. To consider research as a career.

After a whole year with no direction, no thoughts of anything past the day in front of me, I was suddenly imagining a future in science. I had previously intended to pursue genetic counseling, but the proximity of research to groundbreaking developments in the field drew me in.

Back at Clemson, I switched my focus to research. I joined a canine genetics lab comparing disease etiology in dogs to what was known in humans. I started my own independent project on Miniature American Shepherds, fell in love with Eloise, and she is now my greatest joy.

When I applied to graduate schools, I was advised against disclosing my disability until after I received offers. It might be seen as a hindrance toward my degree progress and ability to produce research for a university. I decided to write about it anyway in my admissions essays because I didn’t want to attend a program with a culture that would not support disabled students.

I leaned into my story. I talked about my diagnosis, my lived experience, and my passion for accessible research. I wasn’t trying to hide my disability — I was reframing it as a strength. And it worked. I received offers of both admissions and fellowships, and I got to share my experience as a patient-scientist.

I think the programs that accepted me recognized that, having experienced the patient side of genetics, I can provide a valuable perspective and enhanced motivation to clinical research and patient care. Patients are an often overlooked resource for important scientific questions, and patient outreach can lay the groundwork for developing treatments and interventions that target the most troubling issues.

MUSC’s hEDS research program and the internship I participated in have led to the first candidate gene discovery, with almost every initiative driven by a patient-scientist.

We need more disabled representation in both genetics and biomedicine to provide an empathetic lens to our research and connect our goals back to those we hope to serve. By including patients and disabled researchers in the research that benefits them, we ensure the impact of our work and learn from the perspectives of those it supports.

Diverse perspectives in research broaden our minds, enhance our critical thinking, and keep moving us forward. Because inclusive science means better science — for everyone.

Katherine Grace Singleton is a genetics and molecular biology PhD candidate at Emory University. She is from Sumter, South Carolina, and did her undergraduate degree and research at Clemson University. After completion of a PhD, Katherine hopes to complete an ACMG-accredited Laboratory Genetics and Genomics fellowship program to continue research in a clinical setting.

‘When tears tell a story’: A social worker in gender-affirming care learns the healing power of trust

2025-12-23T14:42:43+00:00

On the phone, my client was crying so hard from anxiety and the immense physical pain she was in that at first, I couldn’t understand her.

“Take a breath, slow down — I’m here for you,” I told her gently. As a social worker with the VNS Health Gender Affirmation Program, I and my fellow team clinicians are often the first people a client may speak to after they’ve been discharged from the hospital following gender affirmation surgery.

As my client started to calm down, it became clear she was experiencing the wave of emotions and feelings that are part of this life-changing moment. She was beyond happy after her first gender-affirming surgery – something she had dreamed of for so long. But she was also overwhelmed with everything that accompanied the journey, including having to recover alone in New York City, far from her home.

She knew this was the best place she could get care, but that didn’t ease the sense of isolation. She also felt deep fears and stress about her timing. We are living through a time when many people across the country are fighting to prevent the type of care she needed most.

Experiencing every feeling under the sun — from elation to fear — is not unusual in this situation. As a woman of transgender experience myself, I relate deeply. I know the highs and lows that come up during those first hours, days, and months. Finally getting to this amazing moment is something my clients have hoped and dreamed of for so long. The truth is, however, that healing and change can sometimes feel bittersweet.

When I came home after my first gender-affirming surgery, I was unbelievably happy, but I was also scared. I was recovering alone, and some days the physical pain was intense. People in my life I thought would help me were suddenly nowhere to be found. I was on my own: I had to rely only on meals I had prepped myself beforehand. If I needed to go to the bathroom, pick up a dropped pillow, take my medicine on time, it was all on me.

Looking back, I’m proud and grateful for my resilience during those days, because it was all worth it. That surgery saved my life. And that is something I hear often from clients in the GAP program: that without gender-affirming care, they might not be here.

But going it alone doesn’t have to be the norm, and I knew a better kind of care could exist. Transgender and nonbinary people deserve to feel safe, comfortable, and supported as they recover at home, receiving health care that respects their gender identity and makes them feel accepted. Now, years on into my career as a social worker for transgender and nonbinary individuals recovering at home after gender-affirming surgery, it makes me so happy that I can help make that care a reality.

The challenges for our clients include both physical needs — such as getting groceries, setting them up with transportation to appointments, even finding them a bed — as well as emotional needs, such as helping a client out of a domestic violence situation, getting them counseling, connecting them with resources right in their community, or simply providing a listening ear they can trust.

Once my client on the phone was feeling calmer, she shared a harrowing incident. The day before, she’d suffered serious post-surgery complications and, out of necessity, went to the closest ER. There, she encountered clinicians who weren’t knowledgeable about her needs. Whether intentional or not, they made her feel like an “other.”

Trying to connect her to a catheter, the nurses struggled, not understanding her unique needs related to her surgical procedure. The physical pain my client was dealing with was excruciating, but the emotional trauma hit even harder. It’s an experience that would wear down anyone, but for a transgender woman, it felt like yet another knock, another hurtful reminder that she was seen as “different.”

As my client shared her struggles, I listened. And I shared. I reminded her that it’s important to make space for the difficult times alongside the amazing ones. I told her to envision where she would be days, weeks, and years from now as she moved beyond the initial post-op stress. I told her to remember what brought her to this moment, and I told her how much hope I had for her future.

As our call started to wrap up, she told me that knowing I was there for her made her feel less alone. In many ways, the conversation I had with her that day was like many others, but this particular call felt special to me. It was a reminder that having compassionate peer support in health care truly makes a difference — especially for communities that are not just historically underserved, but have been mistreated by the health care community.

As a social worker, I sometimes feel a need to accomplish big “wins” for a client, always going above and beyond. But there is also so much to be gained from these seemingly small moments, when you realize that simply bringing care, understanding, and compassion to this work — and knowing your clients trust you — can heal us all.

Asha Lyons is a trans-woman of Latin and Caribbean descent who works as the Gender Affirmation Program licensed social worker at VNS Health. She holds an MSW from the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College. She has worked in the fields of social work, public health, research, anti-violence, and group work for almost 20 years.

An addiction counselor’s ‘aha’ moment: When even saving a life isn’t enough

2025-12-22T14:15:01+00:00

I’ve been working in addiction counseling for a long time. And every now and then, a story sticks with you. This one — this one stuck.

I had a client who was referred to us from another agency here in Atlanta. Homeless. Strong opioid addiction. He was getting Suboxone through a county program at 10 Park Place. That’s part of the Fulton County Health Department. He’d come in every couple of weeks to get his dose.

We kept his medication locked up — two locks, two keys. That’s how we do it. When clients are in treatment, they bring in a 30-day supply of whatever they’re on — blood pressure meds, HIV meds, mental health meds, you name it. We monitor it, make sure they take it right, and lock it back up.

This guy — he was from South Georgia. Used to climb trees for a living. Had a whole Facebook page full of pictures of him way up in the branches, cutting limbs like it was nothing. Strong guy. You could tell he’d worked hard his whole life.

But addiction doesn’t care how strong you are.

Word got back to me that he was selling his Suboxone – that’s a medication used to treat opioid use disorder. Or maybe overusing it. Either way, I had to let him go out to get it. That’s part of the process sometimes.

Then one day, he’s in my office. I’m sitting with a veteran client, and my guy is slumped over at the desk. I hear him snoring, but something’s off. I tell the vet, “Wake him up.” Still hadn’t hit me yet.

The vet nudges him — and he slides out of the chair.

I’m like, “Lord, he’s going into cardiac arrest.”

I jump into action. Start CPR. If you’ve never done CPR by yourself — it’s a workout. I’m on speakerphone with 911, rotating compressions with the vet, yelling down the hall for someone to bring me the defibrillator.

But there’s no one. No staff. No other clients. Just me and the vet.

Finally, the ambulance arrives. They revive him. He’s on the stretcher, heart monitors on his chest, and the first thing he says is: “Mr. Smith, you saved my life. I’m never doing dope again.”

I believed him. I wanted to believe him.

But maybe 10 days later, he’s back. High as a kite. Shirt off. Causing a commotion in the parking lot. It’s wintertime.

I go out to talk to him. I say, “What about what you told me? That I saved your life?”

He looks at me and says, “I don’t remember that.”

I said, “That’s okay. But I’m gonna have to ask you to leave the property. You can’t be out here half-naked, making a scene.”

That was the last time I saw him.

And here’s the thing — this isn’t rare. But addiction is a disease. It’s not a choice. It’s not a moral failure. It’s a cycle. And sometimes, even when you save someone’s life, they don’t remember. Or they’re not ready. Or they’re just too deep in it.

But we keep showing up. Because every person who walks through our doors deserves another chance.

Johnny Smith is a certified addiction counselor and substance abuse case manager at Mercy Care, where he helps guide others through the same journey he once walked. A former top-ranked basketball player in Georgia and professional athlete overseas, his life took a dramatic turn due to addiction. After years of struggle, he found recovery at the Salvation Army, where he now also serves as a part-time chaplain.

Where culture meets compassion: the story behind India Home senior care in New York

2025-12-16T14:37:38+00:00

My story begins far from Queens, in a small, quiet village in Andhra Pradesh, India, called Bangaramma Peta.

In that village lived a gentle, scholarly man named Vangapadu Lakshmi Naidu — my father.

A man who spent his days surrounded by books, ideas, and the calm joy of thinking deeply.

But one day, age brought a silent thief: vascular dementia. Slowly, the words he loved so dearly began slipping away … until even the names of the people he loved were out of reach.

At the time, I was a young psychiatrist in New York.

I understood dementia in theory. But when it hit home — my home — none of the textbooks could prepare me for that pain.

And what hurt most was this: There was nowhere for him to go. No community center in his village. No space to meet people his age, talk, laugh, belong.

He was isolated. And that loneliness broke him, long before the disease did.

I wanted to bring him to New York, but when I looked for culturally appropriate senior care, I kept hearing things like: “We don’t have any curry-serving facilities.”

If doctors can’t figure it out, what about elders who don’t speak English so well, whose routines were built over decades half a world away?

In my circles, I met families like Dr. Kiran Dave, whose late mother, Swarupa Kumari, faced Alzheimer’s disease with few culturally appropriate programs.

And Dr. Deepika Sood, whose father, Dr. Nagarajan, spent his final years yearning for conversation, community … connection.

Different families. Same pain.

My father made me a doctor at a time when girls were not always encouraged to study — especially in a village like ours.

And yet … when he needed care the most, I couldn’t give him what he truly needed — a space to belong, to be understood, to feel at home. That is the ache that never leaves.

But it is also the fire that built India Home.

Because while I couldn’t change his ending, I can change the story for someone else’s father, someone else’s mother.

And in doing so, I honor him every single day.

In 2007, I and my friends founded India Home, a nonprofit organization.

NYC’s India Home loses federal funding over its culturally sensitive senior care. It’s not giving in.

My goal? To build a space where our elders could age with dignity, connection, and cultural pride.

It started small. In 2008, India Home established the first senior center catering to South Asian values and culture at the Services Now for Adult Persons of Eastern Queens.

A few aunties. A few uncles. Some chai. Some samosas

And today?

Let me share what that India Home care looks like — not just in feeling, but in real numbers:

Reach:

Operates five senior centers in Queens.
Has served 5,000+ South Asian and Indo-Caribbean seniors since inception.

Nutrition:

Provided 60,000 congregate meals and 5,200 home-delivered meals last year.
Hosted 70 food pantries.
Provided 4,600 nutrition education units.

Health and wellness:

Provided 49,000 physical exercise sessions, plus yoga, meditation, and health education.
Hosted 20 mental health group sessions.

Creative aging:

Provided 4,400 arts and culture activities (painting, crafts, karaoke, jewelry making).
Provided 1,300+ technology sessions for digital literacy. (Yes, we teach WhatsApp. Because nothing says connection like 73 unread messages from your cousin in Delhi.)

Dementia care:

Offers “Desi Dementia Daycare” (3D Care) for mild to moderate dementia, with cognitive and physical activities and provide caregiver support.

Housing:

Operates innovative co-living homes in Queens for vulnerable seniors, providing shared living and case management.

Case management:

Assistance with SNAP, SSI, Section 8 housing vouchers, Access-A-Ride, and rental aid.
90% success rate in benefits applications.

Community education:

Provided 21,000 education units in English as a second language, citizenship coaching, elder abuse prevention, know your rights informational sessions, Arabic classes, and health workshops.

Special initiatives:

SACCHI Project: South Asian Colon Cancer Health Initiative reached 40,000+ people with culturally adapted education.

Future plans:

Renovating main center into South Asian Community Home with library, arts and crafts corner, and technology lab.
Providing 100% low-income affordable housing units to seniors.

At India Home, our elders don’t just receive care. They rediscover community.

And the best part? You walk in, and you feel it.

You hear Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali, Urdu, Punjabi, English, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Sinhala, Creole … You smell spices – cumin, cardamom, and tea.

You hear laughter — not from staff, but from elders rediscovering joy.

One aunty told us, “I don’t wait for weekends anymore. I wait for Mondays, so I can come back to India Home.”

When Mondays become popular, you know you’re doing something right.

And this — this space — it’s not just for our parents. It’s for us.

Because one day, we’ll be those elders. Hopefully doing yoga. Probably gossiping after it.

And when that day comes, we’ll want a space that gets us.

India Home is now a national model for culturally competent elder care. But to me, it’s something more personal.

Every smile I see there carries a piece of my father’s legacy. He taught me that words can heal.

India Home is my way of giving that healing back. One elder. One story. One day at a time.

What happens when compassion meets culture? You get India Home. A place where aging is not endured … but celebrated.

Dr. Vasundhara Kalasapudi, known as Dr. K., is a psychiatrist specializing in geriatrics. She is founder and executive director of India Home. Her story was read at Healthbeat’s event by India Home treasurer Neetu Jain.

India Home was a sponsor of the event.

A social work story: How the smallest human connection can shift the course of a life

2025-12-15T14:50:31+00:00

Early in my career, I was a social worker in Manhattan, helping older adults navigate life’s challenges. I had studied social service administrative practice at school and wanted to make big systems work better for people. But to do this I knew I first needed to “live” inside one to understand it.

The walk-in center where I worked was a converted storefront — a cramped space with nine desks and little room for privacy, but full of purpose and always teeming with people. My desk was just 10 feet from the door, with the waiting area tucked in between, and spitting distance from the receptionist, who would put calls on hold and then call out as if we were fields apart, “You’ve got a call on line 3!”

Many of the people I served shared similar struggles: loneliness, fading social connections, and confusion with the systems meant to help them. It was a humble, imperfect place, but it taught me something important, especially at the start of my career. We had scarce resources, there were no frills (the bathroom door hit the bookkeeper’s desk every time!), and we were met with constant challenges. But every day we showed up to help people figure things out.

One day in October, a little over a year in, something happened. I emerged from the stifling heat of the subway and felt the crisp fall air snap into my lungs. As I walked with the familiar waking rhythm of the city swirling around me, I thought of fall in New England, when green leaves always gave way to brilliant reds and golds that were swept away by a gust of wind only to gently fall and settle as a waiting pile that would elicit shrieks of joy from bounding children. That cycle was and is still a simple, natural, and predictable one; one where each action yields another, and every aspect of life is connected.

That October morning, my mind drifting with the leaves, I turned the corner to my workplace and stopped short. There, perched on the stoop in front of me was James — head tucked, body curled in on itself, rocking slightly, and oozing sadness.

James had been coming to the center for about six months. He had lost his partner of 20 years to complications from AIDS, and though he came in first for help with a heating issue, he regularly returned with small but compounding needs — each one seeming too big to handle, too confusing to navigate, too much to deal with. With each visit, James talked, and I listened to his stories of love, loss, and grief. I could see he had a growing sadness that was pulling him down like quicksand, slow and deliberate in its lasting grip. I saw it happening, but I struggled with what to do to “fix” it.

When I saw him that morning, wound tight with despair, I ushered him inside and sat with him. He cried; I listened. When his sobs finally slowed, he began to speak. The words he whispered that day have stayed with me ever since:

James told me he had woken that morning in the stillness of his life and thought of suicide. He dressed and walked to the stairwell leading to his building’s roof and stood there, staring upward. He put his foot on the first step and thought: I can go up to the roof and jump, or I can go talk to Aliki.

There were mornings after that day when I would arrive at work wondering, Will today be the day James chooses the roof? I think often of the simple power of that lesson for me. It was when my job became my purpose. When I realized I would carry an enormity and an intimacy in service to others. When I realized that the smallest human connection could shift the course of a life.

Now, years later, after many more years in public health service, I reflect on that time — on the tiny office, scarce resources, and endless challenges — I am reminded that the most powerful system of all is not born from policy, or organizational design, or quick fixes. It is in the simple, natural, predictable actions.

It lives in the smallest moments, the listening without fixing, the quiet power to make a difference, one person at a time. It is the shared joy of jumping in a pile of leaves and shrieking with glee.

Aliki Pappas Weakland has over 25 years experience in social services and public health. She currently serves as an associate director in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office of Readiness and Response. Among her degrees is an MPH from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health.

Holding the flashlight: How a nurse-teacher helps students find strength in storytelling

2025-12-09T18:18:36+00:00

I’m a bachelor-prepared registered nurse, but my work in the New York public school system focuses on guiding students to find, tell, and write their own first-person stories.

When anyone refers to me as “ex-nurse,” it’s so confusing. First, do they really think I don’t pick up a shift or two on weekends? Nurses (especially New York City nurses) are the original jugglers of multiple job types. I remember when we first heard people talk about “side hustles.” That seemed almost like a dare: “Hold my lanyard, here I go.”

Second, is it possible to stop being a nurse in everyday interactions? I can’t imagine not assessing my brother-in-law’s rapid pulse when we hold hands around the family dinner table on holidays. I’d have to be a different person.

But during the week, I swap my stethoscope for composition notebooks and writing prompts, and every day I’m reminded that nearly everything that matters to students is secretly (or not so secretly) health-related.

A kid forgets breakfast and can’t focus on an essay: blood sugar. Another keeps their head down; this isn’t defiance, it’s exhaustion from sleeping approximately 12 minutes the night before, thanks to a crowded apartment, the gentrifying bar next door that makes noise until very, very late, and the pull of watching just once more YouTube short. Someone shares about losing a cousin to gun violence: That’s trauma, grief, community health, and the broken places we’re all trying to live in.

Even grammar sometimes feels like triage: We can’t fix everything at once, but maybe if we get the comma in the right place, we can all feel better for a bit.

Early last semester, a student casually announced, “I think I caught the cortisol.”

“The cortisol?”

He nodded, very serious. “Yeah, I read about it online, I’m nervous all the time, and my stomach hurts.”

So we slowed way down. I started to explain that cortisol isn’t something you catch. And then I realized that’s not true. We talked about what might cause a release of stress hormones, and the student named that he absolutely could inherit a whole ecosystem of anxiety about rent spikes, sirens at 3 a.m., and metal detectors at school.

His shoulders dropped in relief. He wasn’t cured, but he did feel understood. And he understood himself. His reactions made perfect sense given his environment.

One student wrote about an uncle who refused to go to the doctor because “men don’t need checkups.” His last line was: “He didn’t die because he didn’t care. He died because he did what he was taught.” That sentence hit harder than any peer-reviewed article on what we as providers call “non-compliance.” Call it anecdotal evidence if you’d like, but it’s also data with a heartbeat.

And because I’m a nurse in my everyday interactions, the work doesn’t keep school hours. Like the night I got a 12:47 a.m. text from a trans young adult I know from queer kickball (yes, it’s a thing), asking “do I need to go to the emergency room for…”

As a provider, whenever I get a 12.47 a.m. text asking if someone (especially a queer or trans person) needs to go to the ER, they almost always know the answer is yes. They often just need some loving encouragement. Sometimes, firm loving encouragement.

My texting acquaintance hadn’t availed themselves of any health care since they came out as trans, and was worried they wouldn’t be able to advocate successfully, or be able to communicate what the problem was.

There was no way I could reach them to be their ER buddy; classic New York timing means crises always wait until the trains are running “every 28 to 47 minutes.” Or whenever they feel like coming.

“Tell me a story about a time you did stand up for yourself,” I texted.

There was a long pause. A pause long enough for me to consider the possibility that I’d accidentally invented the world’s worst crisis intervention technique. Then:

“Once I told my barber to stop giving me the ‘cute girl fade.’”

There it was. Strength. Humor. Agency. A tiny act of self-definition with a very uneven hairline attached.

“Great,” I texted back. “Use that energy. You don’t need medical jargon. You just need that same ‘nope, not today’ tone. Now go get the care you deserve.”

And they did. Not because I coached them through it, but because telling their own story reminded them that they already knew how to advocate for themselves.

My “aha” moment wasn’t a single beam of light. There wasn’t any celestial chorus singing the takeaway in breathtaking harmony, no brave student holding a metaphorical lantern. It was the slow, steady realization that every time someone tells their story — whether a teenager talking about their grandma’s diabetes medication or a scared queer young adult trying to get urgent care — they locate their own strength.

My job is just to hold the flashlight while they look.

Kelli Dunham is a nurse, a writer, an educator, and a comedian, sometimes all three at once. She is the author of the best-selling guide to puberty, “The Boy’s Body Book,” and host and executive producer of Good Get’s newest podcast, “Cared For.” Former New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio once called her a showoff. To her face.

How adding doors to toilets became a lifeline for women’s health in the Balkans

2025-12-08T16:03:15+00:00

My story is about health care deserts in the heart of the Balkans. It involves periods, toilets, and a mobile clinic.

Health care desert number one: menstruation.

It was 2019, and I was serving as the British Ambassador to North Macedonia. The country’s Institute of Public Health had released a survey that showed over 90% of girls in rural areas in North Macedonia miss school during their period due to poor menstrual hygiene facilities at schools.

Girls were missing school not just because they couldn’t afford sanitary products, but also because the school toilets didn’t have doors. Doors! It was frankly eye opening to see that in a European country.

After this survey was released, we, the United Kingdom, partnered with a regional government to fix a small number of toilets and fund free menstrual products in school bathrooms. We talked to some journalists about the project, and that helped get information out about the problem and the impact on education.

It was a small campaign. It was not expensive to the UK. But the ripple effect was amazing. Here’s what happened next:

The World Bank supported a project to refurbish toilets across primary schools.
The central government offered free menstrual products for high school girls.
The government dropped the value-added tax from period products nationwide.

Rachel Galloway is the British Consul General to the Southeast United States.

Because of all of these steps, girls in rural areas were able to go to school when they had their periods. That moment — watching a policy shift born from a box of pads and a few well-placed headlines — it was stunning. And it made me think, what else can the UK do here?

Which brings me to health care desert number two: mammograms and pap smears.

The UK funded a mobile gynecology unit — an ambulance retrofitted to deliver exams in rural villages. It was a lifeline, especially during 2020 pandemic lockdowns, when women were trapped at home, often in unsafe situations.

The unit reached Roma communities and others who had never seen a doctor. It was a fantastic program. I was really proud of it. But something gnawed at me.

There were no records. No continuity. The nurses remembered faces, the doctors remembered stories, but the system remembered nothing. It was health care by memory, not by data. And in a pandemic, memory isn’t enough.

Local health care workers spoke about the challenge of serving a community without having background knowledge of who people were, what they needed, and even what they understood.

Both of these examples highlight the problem of health care deserts, which are a global problem. And as our mobile clinic demonstrates, it’s not just about providing direct access, but also about the need for better tools. Maybe this is where artificial intelligence could be useful.

An AI future does seem a little scary at times. But when it comes to health care, AI could change lives for the better. It is an area that the UK and the United States are collaborating on through our new technology partnership.

Imagine mobile units equipped not just with medical tools, but with smart systems that build records, track needs, and flag risks. Imagine AI helping us understand those farflung communities in rural locations. It could go a long way in predicting future outbreaks, tailoring care, and building trust.

It won’t replace the nurse who remembers every patient’s story. But it could mean that the next time we roll into a village, we’re not starting from scratch. We’re building on knowledge, not just goodwill.

And maybe we’ll remember that sometimes diplomacy starts with a door on a toilet — and ends with a country changing its laws.

Rachel Galloway is the British Consul General to the Southeast United States. She arrived in July 2022 having previously served as the UK’s Ambassador to the Republic of North Macedonia where she played a pivotal role in strengthening diplomatic relations in the region, including the country’s accession to NATO. Her career spans various positions, from working in Brussels at the EU, to leading a team working on Darfur policy, to a posting in Helmand Province in Afghanistan to a stint at the British Embassy in Washington.

A lesson from ‘Mr. Happy’ in how life after hospital affects recovery

2025-12-03T17:11:09+00:00

What matters most in health care goes beyond medical treatment. It is understanding what truly matters to each person and shaping care around their lives, not just their diagnoses. I learned this lesson firsthand in 2020, when I had just graduated from medical school, moved to the United States, and began my journey caring for some of New York City’s most vulnerable older adults through my work at JASA, one of the city’s largest providers of aging services.

In medical school, I was trained to treat disease and preserve health, yet I quickly realized how little I knew about what happens once patients leave the hospital. Social determinants, daily challenges, and loneliness can profoundly affect recovery and quality of life.

In 2021, I met a patient I will call Mr. Happy. He had recently been discharged after a prolonged hospitalization for congestive heart failure exacerbation and ascites secondary to colon cancer. Reaching him was difficult since he was often unavailable, and the referring social worker warned me that he was hard to engage. When I finally did, he became both my teacher and my patient.

My first “aha” moment came when Mr. Happy taught me the power of patience and persistence. After several attempts, he finally agreed to a visit. When I arrived, I immediately understood his hesitation. His apartment was nearly empty. During his hospitalization, his few possessions had been discarded. He had no chair, no linens, no clothes. He was angry and embarrassed. Through JASA’s support, I was able to provide clothing, shoes, linens, and a recliner so he could sit comfortably.

As we reviewed his medications, I discovered that he had stopped taking his heart failure medicine because it was unaffordable without insurance. I contacted the manufacturer, obtained a coupon, and coordinated with his pharmacy. Within hours, he had his medication in hand. We reviewed each prescription together using the teach-back method and created a simple list he could follow. From that point forward, he took his medications consistently. That was my second “aha” moment: realizing that patients often labeled as “non-compliant” are, in fact, navigating real and significant barriers to care.

My final “aha” moment came when JASA implemented the Age-Friendly Health System framework, which centers on asking every patient a single, transformative question: “What matters most to you?”

That question changed my entire approach to care. For Mr. Happy, what mattered most was regaining his health so he could spend time with his son and siblings and once again play chess in the park. Together, we worked to make that possible by arranging transportation, medication delivery, and home aide support, and by helping him secure insurance for ongoing care.

Through this experience, I learned that true healing begins when we listen deeply to what matters most. Mr. Happy became more than a patient; he became a mentor. On my final visit, we played chess together, honoring one of the things that mattered most to him. He reminded me that compassionate, person-centered care, grounded in empathy and partnership, is at the heart of medicine.

Dr. Jose R. Martinez-Escudero is the associate director of transitional care for JASA at Maimonides Hospital, where he helps underserved older adults navigate the complexities of the health care system in New York City. Dr. Martinez-Escudero completed his medical training at the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico City, followed by a Master of Science degree focused on research in Parkinson’s disease and the basal nuclei.

How an ‘aha’ moment at age 10 led to a career in science and public health

2025-12-02T15:11:53+00:00

I was a career scientist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for nine years, and a public health professional for over 20 years. I’ve had many “aha” moments over the years.

My first “aha” moment was when I was 10 years old. I was sitting on the couch with my grandmother watching a movie, as we did every time I visited. I saw helicopters, people in uniform, and lots of action. The thing that stood out for me was being curious about what a “BSL” was. I saw BSL 1, BSL 2, BSL 3, and so on. This was the opening of the movie “Outbreak.”

If you don’t know, BSL stands for Biosafety Level, with 1 being the lowest.

I was a curious kid, always questioning things and discovering answers to the world. You can imagine how much my parents loved hearing from me constantly!

Some may have watched that movie and thought they wanted to be Dustin Hoffman, the virologist investigating the outbreak. I always wanted to be Rene Russo. Why? Because she was the one who practiced public health and science in the movie the most.

My “aha” was learning that I didn’t want to be the person who knew how government or knowledge was controlled and dispensed, but rather the person who was on the ground with the people it affected. Rene Russo embodied the sacrifices and the leadership that changed the entire outcome of the film. At 10 years old, I wrote an “essay” … if you can even call it that … about how I wanted to be a scientist, and it propelled me on a linear track to achieving that goal.

My second “aha” was becoming a scientist. I realized I didn’t really know much about how to do this job. I was thankful for career scientists and mentors who guided me through the process. If you would have told me it would take a decade to understand the science, and then another decade to understand how I fit into the science, I don’t know if I would have continued on my path. So I had another “aha”: that we don’t have to know it all. Part of public health is constantly learning, and I appreciated that so much when that came to be for me.

My third “aha” was learning that as a civil servant, and one who dedicated their life to saving others, that I would never give up or halt in my efforts. The job is neverending. And so to relate back to my favorite movie “Outbreak,” my second was “The NeverEnding Story.”

Many of us can likely relate to this … who didn’t want a Falcor in their life? But the impact of that movie in the scene with the horse, Artax, is in the Swamp of Sadness. We remember that scene because it was the sensation of leaving your most beloved thing behind. That, in many ways, is what it feels like to be dismissed from duty at the CDC in public health professions.

With all that said, I continue to question, to be curious, to investigate, analyze, and report on my life, assisting others who need information, and to support the wider communities who rely on our strongest efforts. Because who am I without everyone else, and with the sadness of our professions being attacked … we persevere.

Thank you, and with solidarity,

I’m Brandon Kenemer.

Brandon Kenemer is an associate director for informatics focused on data science, surveillance, communications, and bioinformatics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Previously, he worked in psychology, behavioral health, and nursing care.

Meeting ‘Ms. Mary’: The call that changed my shift – and my life

2025-11-24T12:00:00+00:00

“Grady Unit 695, respond to Metropolitan Parkway …”

When it comes to emergency medicine, unpredictability is part of the job. You never know if the next call will be a heart attack, a car crash, or a cry for help that no one else knows how to answer.

That morning, the radio crackled with a call that seemed routine enough: “52-year-old female off her medication, flashing drivers, walking in and out of traffic.”

It was my third hour into a 13-hour shift at Grady, one of the largest public hospitals in the South. My partner and I had a system: He drove, I handled behavioral emergencies. That division wasn’t random — it was personal.

My mother had lived with schizophrenia until her death at 42. In the 1980s, no one spoke openly about depression or psychosis. People just said my mother was “crazy.” I still remember her walking down Albany Avenue in Hartford wearing a pink tutu and white leotard, smiling at strangers who didn’t understand. I was too young to see that she wasn’t dangerous — she was sick, and society didn’t know what to do with her.

On the way to Metropolitan Parkway, all I could think was: Please, don’t let this woman be wearing a tutu.

Meeting Ms. Mary

When we arrived, Ms. Mary stood near a weathered Cutlass Supreme, her yellow sundress dancing in the breeze. She was poised, articulate, and surprisingly self-aware. “My daughter’s getting on my nerves,” she told us. “I need to go to Georgia Regional for 30 days.” Her honesty made me smile.

I invited her into the back of the ambulance, where it was cooler. As I checked her pulse, she explained that she had schizophrenia, high blood pressure, and borderline diabetes. She’d stopped taking her medication because it made her feel off-balance — something I’d heard before, and something I understood.

Then, with the blunt curiosity that often comes with familiarity, she looked me up and down and asked a question about my sexuality — one that could have stung in another setting. But her tone wasn’t cruel; it was matter-of-fact. Before I could respond, she added, “My grandson’s gay, too. And I love him. When we walk down the street, he holds my hand. Don’t let these folks bother you, baby. You just be yourself.”

The tension in that ambulance dissolved into something like grace.

A mirror in the back of the ambulance

Ms. Mary didn’t know she was speaking to someone who had spent a lifetime wrestling with identity. I’d always been aware of my otherness — the way I walked, talked, and carried myself. At 6 years old, a cousin once asked, “Why do you walk like that? You walk like a girl.” Later, my grandmother, whom I loved deeply, told me I had “a spirit” inside me — one I should pray for God to take away. I didn’t understand then what that spirit was, only that it seemed to make people uneasy.

Her words filled me with confusion. How could I pray away something that felt natural? Something that was, in fact, me? Years later, in the back of that ambulance, Ms. Mary unknowingly answered my grandmother’s question. She told me, without apology or hesitation, to live in my truth. Her message — “You just be yourself” — felt like the permission I’d been waiting my whole life to receive.

Beyond the emergency

After that call, I couldn’t stop thinking about the deeper patterns I saw every day. So many people like Ms. Mary were cycling in and out of emergency rooms, never getting the long-term care they needed. So many families, like mine, were left to cope alone. Too many conversations about health stopped at the body and ignored the mind — and the structural issues that shape both.

Being an EMT taught me to treat the crisis in front of me. But I began to realize that the bigger work lay in preventing the crisis before it started. That’s when I found my way to public health. Public health asked the questions that had been haunting me all along: Why do people like Ms. Mary fall through the cracks? Why don’t families like mine get the help they deserve? Why do stigma and silence still have such power over who gets well — and who doesn’t? I wanted to do more than respond to emergencies. I wanted to change the conditions that caused them.

‘You’ve got work to do’

Months later, I saw Ms. Mary again. I was sitting at a red light in Atlanta’s West End when I spotted her — black mini-skirt, red sandals, same confident stride. I rolled down my window, waved, and called out to her. She turned, met my eyes, and said with a knowing smile: “Don’t be late, baby. You’ve got work to do.”

Then she kept walking. Her words have stayed with me. Because she was right — I do have work to do. Work that honors my mother. Work that lifts people like Ms. Mary. Work that challenges the systems that silence the vulnerable and stigmatize the misunderstood.

That single 911 call didn’t just change a shift — it changed my purpose. That’s why I chose public health: not for the prestige, but for the people. For those who walk through the world labeled as problems when, really, they are prophets — reminding us all what care should look like.

Anaré V. Holmes is a firefighter with the Atlanta Fire Rescue Department and an award-winning journalist. He has been honored by the state of Georgia for excellence in trauma care.

Breastfeeding by candlelight: My ‘aha’ moment for improving maternal and child health in emergencies

2025-11-17T19:22:08+00:00

While this story could be named “Why I almost named my son after a hurricane,” instead it tells the story of what inspired me to spend my public health career addressing vulnerabilities in maternal and child health.

On Sept. 16, 2004, two days after delivering my first child, I was discharged from an Atlanta area hospital into the aftermath of Hurricane Ivan. In my post-partum haze, I had no idea what havoc this storm was about to unleash in our lives. At that time, Hurricane Ivan was one of the largest, most devastating hurricanes to hit Georgia, producing tornados, flooding, and power outages throughout the state.

What should have been a 20-minute drive home, took 2 1/2 hours. At one point, we had to pull off the highway so I could feed my son in the car. When we finally arrived at our house, we learned that we had no power and no air conditioning, which even in early fall in Atlanta can create relentless humidity.

This next part may be TMI, but it is important to share that my infant weighed 10 pounds, 14 ounces. Yes, I gave birth to an almost 11-pound baby! What this meant was that he was hungry ALL THE TIME. As the downpour continued, amidst the darkness and heat, we hurried to get settled. For the first hour or so, I tried to breastfeed my new son by candlelight, but through tears, sweat and frustration, I just could not function. I needed my husband’s help to get out of the house and to a hotel, where safety and electricity comforted us through our first night out of the hospital.

This “aha” moment of breastfeeding by candlelight turned into a career inspired to address disparities in maternal and child health.

Unfortunately, being a new mother going through the nightmare of a natural disaster is not a unique or unusual experience, but it is in fact, a dangerous one.

History has shown that pregnant and postpartum women are particularly vulnerable during emergencies. They have functional needs that require additional social and health care-related support, including prenatal and postpartum care and lactation support. Evidence has demonstrated that emergencies can cause heightened stress among this population, often leading to adverse maternal and health outcomes including miscarriage, premature delivery, low birthweight, and mental health challenges.

These were experiences of many women who were pregnant or delivered during several national disasters, including Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana, Hurricane Harvey in Texas, and most recently Hurricane Helene in North Carolina.

Sarah Blake with her newborn son after Hurricane Ivan in 2004.

There are other types of emergencies that mothers experience that are both harmful and preventable. For instance, extreme heat during pregnancy has been shown to increase women’s risk for severe maternal morbidity and adverse infant health outcomes. The Covid-19 pandemic shed light on the importance of maternal immunization to protect women from complications of infectious disease during and after pregnancy. Even human-caused disasters (such as those caused by bioterrorism) have shown to have long-lasting effects on mothers and their infants.

Through my work, I partner with public health agencies and community organizations to create strategies that improve maternal and child health public health emergency preparedness planning and response. Just recently, I worked with my collaborators from the Morehouse School of Medicine’s Center for Maternal Health Equity and Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia to complete Project Prepare, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-funded study of preparedness and readiness for emergency planning among pregnant and postpartum women in Georgia.

Our findings revealed that mothers in Georgia are often disconnected from their health care providers for essential information and support before, during, and after emergencies. They also lack essential financial and social services during emergencies that are needed to ensure healthy outcomes. These findings are important, especially in Georgia, where women experience among the highest rates of maternal mortality.

As both a women’s health advocate and health services researcher, it is my mission to address the vulnerabilities that women experience, particularly during the perinatal period. It is both my purpose and a call to action that I take on willingly and, in these challenging times, with unwavering resolve.

I dedicate this story to my firstborn son, Will – or Ivan as he is fondly sometimes called.

Dr. Sarah Blake, PhD, is an associate professor at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and serves as director of Emory’s Maternal and Child Health Center of Excellence. A health services researcher, she applies a health equity lens to address women’s health care.

‘Ikigai to Ubuntu’: How a chance encounter in Haiti gave me a new ‘reason for being’

2025-11-10T18:15:33+00:00

In the tapestry of life, there are moments that stand out like vibrant threads, weaving together experiences that shape our understanding of purpose and community.

One such moment for me was the day I discovered the profound connection between the Japanese concept of ikigai — a reason for being — and the African philosophy of Ubuntu, which emphasizes our shared humanity.

This realization came to me in a small, unassuming community health center, where a simple act of kindness resulted in a chance encounter that transformed my perspective on the impact of my work.

It was a warm muggy afternoon in the outskirts of Port au Prince, Haiti. I was at a local community health center, a place that served as a refuge of hope for many in the surrounding neighborhood. As I entered the compound, I was greeted by the warm smiles of children playing and the gentle hum of conversations among countless adults.

I had been involved in various community service projects around the world, but that day felt different. It had been a few years after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that left tens of thousands dead and millions homeless. I was there to help organize a health fair, but little did I know that I was about to experience a pivotal moment in my life.

As I sorted through boxes of medical supplies that we had acquired from MedShare International in Georgia, I noticed an elderly woman sitting alone at a table, her hands trembling slightly as she sorted through a box of food items. Her name was Mama Guerline, a widow who had lived in the community for decades. I approached her, offering a smile and a helping hand. We began to chat, and she shared stories of her late husband, and her late children, all lost in the 2010 earthquake.

She talked about the challenges she faced living on rations on a day-to-day basis. Despite having extraordinarily little left to her name, she was determined to do her part to help rebuild her torn nation. She believed her life had been spared during the earthquake so she could be a messenger of hope and change. She did not have any sources of funding, but she had a heart of gold and the determination of steel.

As she spoke, I felt a deep sense of empathy wash over me.

Here was a woman whose life was filled with love and loss, yet she radiated resilience and hope. I asked her what we could do differently for her, and she stated: Do not worry about me. Instead, focus on the youth, as they represent tomorrow. She stated that the children represent the heartbeat of the broken community. If the heart failed, the community would cease to flourish.

In that moment, I realized that my work was not just about organizing health fairs, or collecting and distributing medical donations and countless resources. It was about connecting with people, understanding their stories, and recognizing the impact of our collective efforts in the bid to transform the community.

Ubuntu: ‘I am because we are’

Mama Guerline’s gratitude for the small act of kindness we offered was palpable. She expressed how the community health center had become a lifeline for her and many others, a place where she felt valued and cared for. It struck me that this was the essence of ikigai — finding purpose in serving others and contributing to the greater good. As our conversation deepened, Mama Guerline introduced me to what I then realized was the concept of Ubuntu. She explained that in her culture, the phrase “I am because we are” encapsulates the idea that our identities are intertwined with those of others.

This philosophy resonated with me, illuminating a path forward that I had not previously considered. I began to see how my work could extend beyond individual acts of service to fostering a sense of community and belonging. That day, I left the community health center with a renewed sense of purpose. What we were doing was simply not enough. The children in the community needed to go to school in order to champion the cause for tomorrow. To do that, they needed to have food and nourishment, and they also needed to have a safe environment to live and play in.

Our group of students and volunteers adopted a Creole term on that day: “Nou kapab,” simply meaning “We can.”

I understood that my role was not merely to aid but to cultivate relationships and create an environment where everyone felt seen, heard, and respected. The ripple effect of a small act of care and simply listening could transform lives, just as it had for Mama Guerline. I realized that when we invest in one another, we build a stronger, more resilient community.

How deep listening can be a catalyst for change

In the weeks, months and years that followed, I took this newfound understanding to heart. I began to engage more deeply with the people we served, listening to their stories and learning about their needs. We organized a student movement that not only provided outreach and resources but also fostered connections among community members by engaging the community and performing extensive community needs assessments.

I witnessed firsthand how these small initiatives created a sense of belonging and empowerment. People began to share their knowledge, skills, and talents, forming a network of support that transcended individual struggles. The breakthrough I experienced that day was not just a personal revelation; it was a call to action. I understood that my work could be a catalyst for change, a means to uplift others and create a healthier and more compassionate society.

The principles of ikigai and Ubuntu became guiding lights in my journey, reminding me that true fulfillment comes from serving others and recognizing our shared humanity.

Reflecting on that pivotal moment, I am grateful for the opportunity to connect with Mama Guerline and the many others who have enriched my life. Their stories have taught me that every small act of kindness has the potential to create ripples of change and transformation. I have come to appreciate the beauty of community, where we can support one another and thrive collectively.

In conclusion, my journey from ikigai to Ubuntu has been transformative. It has illuminated a path forward, one that emphasizes the importance of connection, empathy, and shared purpose. As I continue to navigate my work and life, I carry with me the lessons learned from that day – a reminder that we are all interconnected, and that our actions, no matter how small, can have a lasting impact on the world around us.

Dr. Alawode Oladele is the supervising physician and laboratory director for infectious diseases and refugee health at DeKalb Public Health, following decades in global public health. He has degrees from the Morehouse School of Medicine and the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University.