Follow the Data Podcast

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed virtually everything about the way we live – including how we eat.

The pandemic has drastically increased the number of people around the world who are food insecure, while obesity and other diet-related conditions like diabetes and hypertension increase the risk of hospitalization and severe illness from COVID-19.

Improving the quality of our diets and building resilient food systems is critical to public health – which is why Bloomberg Philanthropies is investing another $250 million over the next five years in order to accelerate progress toward creating healthier food environments globally.

On this episode, Dr. Neena Prasad, who leads Bloomberg Philanthropies’ food policy program, sits down with Dr. Marion Nestle - the Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University, and a Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell. She recently wrote Let’s Ask Marion: What You Need to Know About the Politics of Food, Nutrition, and Health, a series of essays around food politics.

Neena and Marion join the podcast this World Food Day to discuss why food is political; the connection between hunger, obesity, and climate change; and how the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the need - and opportunities - to create a healthier and more socially just food system. This is the first episode in a mini-series around food policy.

To learn more about Marion Nestle’s work, you can read her blog here: http://foodpolitics.com/

You can buy her book, Let’s Ask Marion: What You Need to Know About the Politics of Food, Nutrition, and Health, here: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520343238/lets-ask-marion

As wildfires blaze along the West Coast, extreme weather devastates the Gulf Coast and Midwest, and temperatures rise to record levels, a majority of registered voters in the United States say that climate change will be an important issue in the 2020 presidential election.

Bloomberg Philanthropies has been working with the Sierra Club to phase out coal power in favor of cleaner, healthier forms of energy. Through our work on the Beyond Coal campaign, we’ve helped retire 60% of domestic coal plants, and are on track to retire 100% of the nation’s coal plants by 2030. Beyond Coal estimates that these plant closures have saved an estimated 7,600 lives, prevented nearly 12,000 heart attacks, and resulted in an estimated annual savings of $3.6 billion in health care costs.

Beyond Coal has been named one of the most successful environmental campaigns in the country, and has inspired the launch of grassroots campaigns in Europe, Korea, Japan, and Australia.

On this episode, Antha Williams – global head of Climate & Environment programs at Bloomberg Philanthropies – sits down with Mary Anne Hitt, the Sierra Club’s National Director of Campaigns, and Reverend Yearwood, the President and CEO of Hip Hop Caucus.

Together, they discuss the impact of retiring coal plants and transitioning to clean energy, how climate justice and racial justice are connected, and why it’s important to vote for candidates who believe in climate change in the upcoming election.

This week, Johns Hopkins University data confirmed that the global coronavirus death toll crossed one million.

Though we are learning new information about the virus every day, cities are home to 50% of the global population – and therefore at the forefront of the COVID-19 crisis. So the Partnership for Healthy Cities – which was created by Bloomberg Philanthropies to prevent noncommunicable diseases and injuries in 70 global cities – is stepping up and expanding its support for cities and local leaders during the pandemic.

On this episode, Fernando Straface, the Secretary General and Secretary of Foreign Relations of the City of Buenos Aires, joins Dr. Kelly Henning – head of Bloomberg Philanthropies public health team. Together, they discuss how Buenos Aires is collaborating with other Latin American cities to coordinate coronavirus response, how the city government is utilizing data from its COVID-19 dashboard, and what’s keeping local leaders hopeful now.

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed many inequities– and for high-achieving, lower-income high school seniors, the cost of higher education may make enrolling in college even more challenging. The National College Attainment Network analysis of FAFSA data through August reports that 1000,000 fewer high school seniors completed financial aid applications for college admissions this year.

One of our CollegePoint partners, Matriculate, trains college student Advising Fellows to help high-achieving, lower-income high school students identify colleges that are a good fit, complete resumes, recommendations, and application forms, apply for financial aid, compare aid packages, and prepare academically, socially, and emotionally to succeed in college.

On this episode, Jhenielle Reynolds, who works on the education team at Bloomberg Philanthropies, sits down with Mikayla Deckard, Matriculate’s Head Virtual Advising Fellow, and a student at Indiana University - Bloomington, and Freddy Rodriguez, a high school student currently applying to college with the help of CollegePoint.

Mikayla and Freddy join the podcast to tell us about how they’re working together to navigate the uncertainties of applying to college during a pandemic and share advice for other students in the college admissions process.

Summer has always been a special time for children to get outdoors and play – but the coronavirus pandemic posed a challenge for summer camps and programs serving youth.

The Fresh Air Fund, which was founded in 1877 at the height of the tuberculosis epidemic in New York City was determined to continue its mission of providing free summer experiences for kids. With the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies, Ford Foundation, and The JPB Foundation, The Fresh Air Fund created Summer Spaces, in collaboration with the city, transforming closed New York City streets into age-appropriate, socially distant, play spaces for children. The program also provided employment to local youth ages 18 to 24, who served as activity specialists, coaches, and counselors.

Special thanks to the many program partners, including ones mentioned in this episode: Ford Foundation, The JPB Foundation, the American Ballet Theater, Scholastic, and Verizon.

In this episode, Fatima Shama, the Executive Director of The Fresh Air Fund, sits down with Megan Sheekey, who leads strategic partnerships at Bloomberg Associates, to tell us more about how The Fresh Air Fund has innovated its programming during the pandemic, how The Fresh Air Fund worked with local partners to support communities, and how cities can more effectively collaborate with partners in order to improve quality of life for their residents.

CollegePoint is a virtual advising program that aims to help as many as 65,000 high-achieving, low-income high school students apply to college, navigate the financial aid process, and decide which college to attend – entirely for free. The program matches each student with a virtual college advisor who provides personalized college application and financial aid support through text messages, e-mails, and video conference calls.

On this episode, Jhenielle Reynolds, who works on the education team at Bloomberg Philanthropies, sits down with Rachel Maguire, a CollegePoint advisor, and Logan Balfantz, a recent CollegePoint alum who is now a freshman at the University of Notre Dame.

Rachel and Logan joined the podcast to tell us more about what it was like to work together through CollegePoint during Logan’s college application process, to give tips to students who may be applying to college during the pandemic, and to share advice for students and advisors who may be adjusting to tele-education methods during the pandemic.

This episode is a rebroadcast that we first published in late September of 2019 around the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. We spoke with Alice Greenwald - National September 11th Memorial and Museum President and CEO. And she shared with us how a series of stone monoliths at the site of the memorial – known as the Glade – came to be and its purpose. And while it was temporarily closed to the public during the pandemic for safety reasons, the space has reopened to welcome visitors once again.

With back to school on everyone’s minds, students, parents, educators, public health experts and politicians continue to debate on the safety of reopening schools for in-person instruction.

On this episode, we talk to Dr. Jennifer Nuzzo, a Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, where she leads research partnerships with public health practitioners in order to document their learnings and improve our readiness for large and challenging outbreaks. She also co-wrote a New York Times op-ed earlier this summer, called “We Have to Focus on Opening Schools, Not Bars.”

Dr. Nuzzo joined Dr. Kelly Henning, who leads our public health program, to share advice for schools and school administrators trying to enforce social distancing and mask wearing, to discuss how students, teachers, and administrators who are immunosuppressed should approach returning to the classroom, and to tell us more about how other countries are approaching school reopening.

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the way we live – and a vaccine is our best hope to resume normal life.

While studies of possible COVID-19 vaccines continue, questions emerge: How close are we to a vaccine? Should children, pregnant women, and the elderly be included in vaccine trials? How successful does a vaccine have to be in order to be considered effective?

Dr. Ruth Karron is the Director of the Center for Immunization Research and of the Johns Hopkins Vaccine Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and is considered one of the top vaccine experts in the world.

Dr. Karron sits down with Dr. Josh Sharfstein to tell us more about how COVID-19 vaccine trials are evaluating vaccine safety, why it’s important to have racial and ethnic diversity in vaccine trials, and how we can build trust with communities to allay concerns about the vaccine.

This episode is borrowed from “Public Health on Call,” the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s podcast – hosted by Dr. Josh Sharfstein, Vice Dean for Public Health Practice and Community Engagement, and a frequent guest on our show.

Read more about the COVID-19 vaccine on the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health site here: https://www.jhsph.edu/covid-19/articles/a-top-vaccine-expert-answers-important-questions-about-a-covid-19-vaccine.html

In London, cultural tourism is worth about 8 billion pounds a year—largely from international visitors. Recent statistics in London indicate that the creative economy will lose 16 billion pounds, and 150,000 jobs, by the end of 2020 alone.

As the Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries of London, Justine Simons oversees City Hall’s work across music, theatre, film, fashion, design, games, and art. She’s also the founder and chair of the World Cities Culture Forum, which convenes cities to explore the vital role the arts have in shaping communities.

Justine sat down with Tracey Knuckles, who helps cities develop strategies for strengthening their creative sector in her role at Bloomberg Associates, to discuss how London and other cities around the world are responding to COVID-19’s impact on the cultural sector, what strategies cities are implementing as they navigate re-opening cultural institutions, and what the long-term outlook looks like after the pandemic.