The American Health Podcast

Bloomberg Fellow Haven Wheelock and her colleague Jasmine Pettet share more about their work to increase harm reduction outreach for young people who use drugs. 

Bloomberg Fellow Edward McWilliams outlines his journey into public health and his work with young people hoping to create a better future. 

Bloomberg Fellow Anthony Betori and Bloomberg Professor of American Health, Tamar Mendelson, share more about the evolving definition of opportunity youth. 

Tenta Tenorio, of the Commonwealth Healthcare Corporation, Public Health Services in the Northern Mariana Islands shares more about how her organization is providing healthcare to young people in their community. 

Bloomberg Fellow Livy Lewis and her colleague Kelly Pingree, share more about how they plan to use a USDA grant to bring Native foods to the Wind River Indian Reservation in Wyoming.

The American Health Podcast is back! Join hosts Caitlin Hoffman and Su Tellakat as they explore the impact of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative community, with a focus on adolescent health this season. They will cover topics including the importance of native american food in schools, how to better serve young people who are not in school and are not working, and how to help young people who use drugs. Thanks for listening!

On February 17, the American Public Health Association and the Bloomberg American Health Initiative released a federal policy agenda to address the needs of the more than 4 million young people ages 16 to 24 who are not enrolled in school or in the labor market. In this episode, Andrea McDaniels speaks to two of the people who put this agenda together: Professor Tamar Mendelson, director of the Center for Adolescent Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and C. Pluff, program manager at the American Public Health Association.  

To learn more about the federal policy agenda, visit opportunityyouthagenda.org.  

This episode first ran on the Public Health on Call Podcast. For decades, infrastructure policies harmed communities of color. New highways displaced residents through eminent domain, public transit systems were left in disrepair, and urban construction projects often catered to wealthier families. Andrea K. McDaniels, Director of Communications for the Bloomberg American Health Initiative, talks with Professor Keshia Pollack Porter of the Bloomberg School about how President Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan has the potential to rectify many of these inequities, some of the challenges of the federal law, and how infrastructure is intrinsically tied to health and well-being.

When children miss too much school it can negatively impact their health and set back their life potential. In Washington, D.C., pediatricians have partnered with public schools to get students back in the classroom. Andrea K. McDaniels, Director of Communications for the Bloomberg American Health Initiative, talks with two leaders at Children’s National Hospital about the innovative program to share absenteeism data with pediatricians: Dr. Danielle Dooley, a pediatrician and Medical Director of Community Affairs, and Tonya Vidal Kinlow, Vice President of Community Engagement, Advocacy, and Government Affairs. The Chronic Absenteeism Reduction Effort (CARE) is a high-impact project of the Bloomberg American Health Initiative.

The pandemic in some ways put victims of intimate partner violence in more vulnerable positions as support services became out of reach and lost jobs, virtual work and other issues meant women were trapped at home with violent partners.

Black women found themselves dealing with these new obstacles as well as the racism and sexism that already existed for them before the pandemic.

In this podcast episode, Bloomberg American Health Director of Communications Andrea K. McDaniels spoke with Tiara C. Willie, Bloomberg Assistant Professor of American Health in the Department of Mental Health, and Megan Simmons, Senior Policy Attorney for Ujima, Inc.: The National Center on Violence Against Women in the Black Community, about how the environment created housing instability for Black women.