Listen Now

We continue our “Meet our Hosts” series with co-host Aresha Martinez-Cardoso, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Science at the University of Chicago. Aresha gives us insight into how her work has been inspired by her own life growing up in immigrant communities in California and reflects on the early wins and challenges of her career so far. We also get to learn about her attempts at getting on reality TV.

This episode kicks of our “Meet Our Host” series where we interview our fellow co-host to share more about their work, life, and passion for population health. To kick us off we’re joined by Darrell Hudson, Associate Professor in the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St Louis. Darrel shares more about how his life growing up in Detroit has informed his career, working on early research on stress and health at Morehouse, and his secret comedic powers.

Nutrition is critical in the production of health and health inequities across the lifecourse and in utero. We were fortunate to have Epidemiology Superstar Lisa Bodnar, Professor of Epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health to join us for this episode. Professor Bodnar dropped lots of yummy, thoughtful nuggets for us to consume, ranging from funding one’s research agenda to maintaining one’s sanity while perpetually underwater  to developing a popular podcast—Shiny Epi People.

Across the country, workers have become increasingly disengaged and dissatisfied with their work,  searching for other job opportunities or a break from work altogether in what economists are calling “The Great Resignation.”  At the same time, workplaces have attempted to  enhance worker wellbeing during the pandemic and expand DEI efforts. In today’s episode we’re joined by work and diversity scholar Courtney McCluney, an assistant professor of Organizational Behavior in the ILR School at Cornell University, to chat about her trajectory of research on work, where employers are succeeding and failing their workers, and how researchers can effectively share their research insights in the private space.

In 2021 state-based abortion restrictions swelled across the country and a powerful challenge to Roe v Wade, the Supreme Court decision that protects a pregnant person's right to choose to have an abortion, will be decided in the Supreme Court this year. All admist a backdrop of pervasive disparities in access to family planning, prenatal care, and maternal and child mortality across race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status. In this episode, we’re joined by Dr. Tiffany Green, Assistant Professor in the Departments of Population Health Sciences and Obstetrics & Gynecology at UW-Madison, and Dr Lina Maria Murillo, Assistant Professor in the Departments of Gender, Women's and Sexuality Studies, History, and Latina/o/x Studies at the University of Iowa, to help us understand the history of reproductive rights and justice and what might lie ahead given the current policy context.

For our first episode of 2022 we’re joined by Jesus Ramirez-Valles, a researcher and director of the Health Equity Institute at SF State who has traversed tenure-track faculty positions, led academic departments and research centers, and headed up leading journals in public health. Jesus reflects on his career promoting health equity and training the next generation of diverse scholars, as well as the challenges along the way.

We all know the importance of socioeconomic resources in relation to health. There are countless studies conducted over decades that continue to demonstrate socioeconomic resources such as income affect a wide range of outcomes. Despite the extensive documentation of the importance of socioeconomic resources, especially income, as they relate to health and health inequities, the field of population health spends much less time considering how to get money into the hands of people who need it. One solution is the implementation of guaranteed income programs. In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Lorraine Dean, Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Health Management and Policy at Johns Hopkins University, to discuss guaranteed income initiatives and more.

Sleep is often referred to as the third life, as we literally spend about a third of our lives sleep. And while we may not be conscious, there is a massive amount of physiological activity occurring during sleep. Therefore, the effects of sleep, both quantity and quality, on overall health and well-being are tremendous. Additionally, researchers have linked aspects of sleep to racial/ethnic and socioeconomic health inequities. In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Dayna Johnson, Assistant Professor of Epidemiology at Emory University. Dr. Johnson’s investigates the root causes of sleep health disparities and their impact on cardiovascular disease. Join us as we discuss the many effects of sleep on health and health equity.

In this very special episode of Sick Individuals/Sick Populations, we're broadcasting live from the floor of the 2021 IAPHS Annual Meeting! Join our hosts as they chat with conference-goers about the research they're presenting during the meeting; exciting sessions that they've attended so far; and their general, overall (virtual) conference experience.

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

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

In the midst that is happening all around us in the United States right now, it is easy to lose sight of what is happening across the globe. Haiti is a country rich in history and culture that has experienced a great deal of misfortune, historically and contemporarily. Just in the last six weeks, there has been a presidential assassination, an earthquake and torrential storms all while rates of Covid-19 have surged. In this episode, we were joined by Dr. Lora Iannotti, a global health researcher who has been working in Haiti for several decades. We discussed the historical context of Haiti, the unique challenges the country has faced and what solutions are needed to lead to sustainable progress in Haiti.

Welcome back for another episode of Sick Individuals/ Sick Populations. In this episode, we were fortunate to be joined by Dr. Adia Harvey Wingfield, the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor of Arts & Sciences and Vice Dean for Faculty Development and Diversity in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research examines how and why racial and gender inequality persists in professional occupations. Her most recent book, Flatlining: Race, Work, and Health Care in the New Economy, won the 2019 C. Wright Mills Award. In our wide ranging conversation, we discussed the impact of the pandemic on health workers, particularly Black American providers who were already marginalized and bearing a disproportionate burden prior to the pandemic. Dr. Harvey Wingfield also shed light on what companies and organizations should be doing to support equity beyond hashtags and statements. Link to the book: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520300347/flatlining

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

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

One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, we reflect on the important ways population health scientists have contributed to the pandemic response by chatting with Drs Lindsey Leininger and Amanda Simanek, two members of the Those Nerdy Girls who lead Dear Pandemic website and social media platforms. Dear Pandemic uses social media to answer people’s pandemic-related questions, aiming to cut through the swirl of disinformation on the web with clear and concise communication.  Join us as we learn how Dear Pandemic got started and emerged, how the team is communicating science in innovative ways, and the lessons the Nerdy Girls have learned about their science and professional development with this project.  Listeners can learn more about Dear Pandemic here: https://dearpandemic.org/

We are just in the first few months of 2021 but there is already quite a bit to digest. On the heels of a year of racial reckoning with the punctuation of the January 6 insurrection, deep societal fractures have been revealed. While surprising to many Americans, for many people, especially the outstanding scholars who contributed to this episode, these recent events are products as a continual manifestation of the legacy of racism that undergirds the United States. If racial equity in health, socioeconomics and other outcomes are a goal of population health, it is clear that we must disrupt historical legacies of racism that have continued to affect contemporary issues. We were pleased to be joined by Professors David Cunningham and Geoff Ward, both from Washington University in St. Louis. Professor David Cunningham is the Chair of Sociology at Washington University in St. Louis. His research focuses on racial contention and its legacies. Dr. Geoff Ward is Professor of African and African-American Studies and a faculty affiliate in the Department of Sociology and American Culture Studies Program at Washington University in St. Louis. His scholarship examines the racial politics of social control and the pursuit of racial justice, historically and today. Listeners can find Professor Cunningham’s latest book, Klansville, USA: The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-Era Ku Klux Klan here. Professors Ward and Cunningham are editing a forthcoming special issue  for The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science “Legacies of Racial Violence: Clarifying and Addressing the Presence of the Past” with an anticipated publishing in May 2021.

By the time of this recording, the COVID-19 pandemic has been raging on for just over a year. Although the arrival of effective vaccinations signals that we are headed towards the end of this unprecedented moment, we are likely only beginning to grapple with the ways in which the virus has fundamentally altered our society. One place where fallout from COVID-19 is already being actualized is academia. From stories on the ground, this pandemic has created a set of previously unimaginable challenges for scholars across the board---but particularly for assistant professors, post-docs, and graduate students of color. In this episode of Sick Individuals/Sick Populations, we welcome Sandte Stanley, Dr. Zelma Oyarvide Tuthill, and Kevin Martinez-Folgar to share their experiences in navigating the pandemic as early career scholars. We chat about how COVID has impacted our guests' professional goals; discuss what type of support we would like to see our academic institutions develop in to help scholars navigate the uncertainty of a post-COVID world; and chat about how the "dual pandemics" of racial violence and COVID-19 have coalesced to impact our guests' work and personal well-being. This episode is sponsored by the Student Committee of IAPHS.

Whether covering your face during a pandemic or developing policies that create equitable access to health promoting resources and healthcare, politics are involved. As we consider population level policies and practices capable improving the health and well-being of people around the globe, one of the biggest barriers is not funding. It’s political will. Unfortunately, it seems that our current political climate is toxic. We were fortunate to talk to Dr. Nadia Brown, Associate Professor of Political Science and African American Studies at Purdue University, to help us understand our nation’s current political moment. Dr. Brown’s current book, Sister Style, published by Oxford University Press, was just recently released. Listeners may enter (ASFLYQ6) for a 30% discount on the book.

At this stage of the pandemic, the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine is absolutely critical if we seek to return to any semblance of normalcy in the foreseeable future. Despite the development of multiple, highly effective vaccines, we have all been frustrated with the slow rollout as well as the inequitable dissemination of the vaccine to date. For this episode, we were very fortunate to be joined by Dr. Mati Htlatswayo Davis, an infectious disease specialist at Washington University and the Veterans Administration Healthcare System in St. Louis. Htlatswayo Davis has regularly interacts with patients and discusses the vaccine and considers the broad population health implications of the current pandemic and how we can get more people vaccinated.