In Rural America, a Weak Signal Can Mean Worse Health
The Dose
What happens when your zip code threatens your health? Broadband access is often framed as a tech issue, but in some rural communities it’s a matter of health equity. Broadband internet is so limited in some areas that patients can’t use remote monitoring devices, hospitals can’t support telehealth, and electronic health records slow down care instead of streamlining it. On this week’s episode of The Dose, journalist Sarah Jane Tribble joins host Joel Bervell to explain how internet dead zones are deepening chronic illness in rural communities. Drawing from her reporting for KFF Health...
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In the Age of AI, Health Innovation Requires Human Stories
The Dose
Data is the engine of health innovation, but too often it can’t tell the full story. On this week’s episode of The Dose, Dr. Sema Sgaier joins host Joel Bervell to talk about the future of equitable health care: how we collect data, who’s included, and what it means for clinical trials, mental health, and the role of AI. Tune in to hear Dr. Sgaier explain why solving health care’s toughest challenges starts with understanding the human side of health — and how inclusive data can lead to smarter policies, safer treatments, and better care.
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“Data Silence” Holds High Stakes for People’s Health
The Dose
We’re in a pivotal moment for health care equity and public health. Systems for tracking data on maternal mortality and chronic disease are being dismantled, with consequences that could last generations. On this week’s episode of The Dose, Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith joins host Joel Bervell to talk about who’s represented in the health data we collect, and who isn’t, and why it’s so important for “people to feel safe in sharing” their data and “to have trust that it’s protected.” Dr. Nunez-Smith also explains how her experience as a parent of a child with a rare disease...
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How Private Equity Deals Are Reshaping Your Health Care
The Dose
When private equity firms buy your local hospital, your primary care doctor’s office, or your local nursing home, they profit. But what happens to those health care institutions, the patients they serve, and the people who work there? On The Dose this week, Dr. Zirui Song, a renowned expert on private equity in health care, talks with host Joel Bervell about the ways private equity maximizes profits — from cherry-picking patients and reducing staffing to putting the institutions they buy in debt. He also discusses efforts underway to protect patients and communities.
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Charting a Path Through a Troubled Legacy
The Dose
As the American Medical Association’s first chief equity officer, Dr. Aletha Maybank guided the legacy medical institution through a difficult reckoning with its past exclusion of Black and women physicians. In a new episode of The Dose, host Joel Bervell talks to Dr. Maybank about how she did it, what lessons the AMA holds for our current moment, and why she has hope that American institutions can evolve into places that serve all of us.
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Climate Change Is Already Disrupting Health Care in the U.S.
The Dose
Yes, the planet is getting hotter, tropical storms are becoming ever more fierce, and the Arctic is melting — but what’s that got to do with health care? This week on The Dose podcast, host Joel Bervell explores the intersection of climate change and public health with Admiral Rachel L. Levine, M.D., the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health. Levine, who oversees the federal Office of Climate Change and Health Equity, talks about how weather-related events are already having a serious impact on our fragile health system supply chain, even though those effects can go unnoticed by the broader...
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Climate Change as a Public Health Issue
The Dose
As climate change intensifies and New Yorkers face record-breaking heat, the city is taking new measures to protect residents’ health. Landlords will soon have to provide air conditioning to tenants, school bus fleets are going electric, and efforts are underway to make housing more affordable. Cameron Clarke of WE ACT for Environmental Justice is on the front lines of the push to build a healthier New York City. One recent initiative focused on developing an asthma policy agenda. “We wanted to talk about housing, transportation, education, and the actual landscape of the built...
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Reforming Mental Health Support for Students and Health Care Workers
The Dose
Evidence of a mental health crisis is everywhere — from the recent surgeon general advisory about social media’s effects on our youth to the pandemic’s documented impact on medical professionals. To whom does a college student turn for help so far from home? And who cares for the mental health of those caring for us? Enter Dr. Jessi Gold, a psychiatrist and the University of Tennessee’s first chief wellness officer, who aims to change the way student mental health is addressed on campus. She favors an open, flexible approach to helping students find the kind of help that’s right for...
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Advancing Health Equity Through Disruptive Innovation
The Dose
Moving the needle on health care access and health disparities is no easy task. Inequities for people of color are embedded in the U.S. health system, shaping their health care journeys and often leading to outcomes worse than those experienced by white Americans. That’s where Dr. Chris Pernell, director of NAACP’s Center for Health Equity, comes in. “Sometimes you got to make those systems bend, and other times you got to disrupt those systems, innovate and invent, and create and design.” In this episode of The Dose podcast, host Joel Bervell talks to Dr. Pernell about her work...
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More Conversations from Aspen Ideas: Health
The Dose
In this special two-part edition of The Dose, we’re bringing listeners along to an exhilarating gathering of health care’s most innovative thinkers and changemakers — Aspen Ideas: Health. In part 2, host Joel Bervell talks to two people who are reshaping how we think about community health: Mary Oxendine, a Lumbee and Tuscarora woman and the former North Carolina Food Security Coordinator at Durham County; and Shameca Brown, a mental health provider and advocate for Black and brown people in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and former member of the Mental Health Association of Oklahoma’s board of...
info_outlineOn this special season of The Dose, guest host Joel Bervell is hosting a series of conversations with experts and leaders in health equity. In examining how we can uproot racism in our healthcare system, we are starting at the beginning of many healthcare careers: medical school.
Naomi Nkinsi was one of the few Black students in her cohort at University of Washington School of Medicine. She noticed that the images in her lectures depicted Black patients living in impoverished and hygienic conditions, while pictures of white patients showed polished school photos. Nkinsi recognized that the disparity in images reinforced harmful biases for her classmates, and she began to advocate for a change.
Through a back-and-forth with her university’s administration, Nkinsi continued to advocate against racism. She eventually sparked a conversation that led to the reversal of the race-based component of the eGFR equation in many settings, thus removing a barrier to proper kidney treatment for thousands of Black patients.
On the latest episode of The Dose, Nnkinsi joins Joel Bervell to discuss why and how she continues to challenge racism, despite institutional pushback, and shares what medical schools can learn from their students.
“The days I didn't say anything, I felt worse than when I did,” Nkinsi says. “I had already been outspoken, I already had the reputation of the angry Black student. Other classmates already viewed me as unprofessional… So if I already have that reputation, then I should just keep speaking out because it's not going to get worse.”
Citations
Health inequities and the inappropriate use of race in nephrology