Communities in Action

Consensus

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In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health.

Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways.

Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

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582 pages · 6 x 9 · paperback
ISBN Paperback: 0-309-45296-1
ISBN Ebook: 0-309-45297-X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17226/24624

Suggested citation

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2017. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.

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James N. Weinstein

James N. Weinstein is CEO and President of Dartmouth-Hitchcock and is also the Peggy Y. Thomson Professor in The Evaluative Clinical Sciences at Darmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. He leads a health system that includes New Hampshire’s only academic medical center and a network of clinics across two states, serving a patient population of 1.4 million. Dr. Weinstein also chairs the Executive Committee of the High Value Healthcare Collaborative (HVHC), which he founded along with leaders of Denver Health, Intermountain Healthcare, and Mayo Clinic. Prior to being named as Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s first system wide CEO in 2011, Dr. Weinstein served as President of Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic and Director of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice (TDI), home of the Dartmouth Atlas. He is also the Founding Chairman of the Departments of Orthopaedics at Dartmouth-Hitchcock and Dartmouth Medical School (now the Geisel School of Medicine), and Co-Founder of The Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science, a collaborative effort between the Tuck School of Business and TDI. He is principal investigator for the 13 center, 11 state, NIH-funded SPORT (Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial) study, in its fifteenth year of funding, the first large-scale trial to look at the effectiveness of the three most common surgical procedures for back pain, as compared to non-operative treatment. As a leader in advancing "informed choice" to ensure patients receive evidence-based, safe, effective, efficient and appropriate care, he established the first-in-the-nation Center for Shared Decision-Making at Dartmouth-Hitchcock in 1999, where patient preferences and values are an integral part of diagnostic and treatment decisions. Dr. Weinstein is a member of the Special Medical Advisory Group composed of leading medical experts to assist the Secretary of Veterans Affairs in delivering health care to the 9 million Veterans enrolled in the Veterans Health Administration. Dr. Weinstein has his D.O. in Osteopathic Medicine from the Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine (1977), and his M.S. in Health Services Research from Dartmouth Medical School (1995). An internationally renowned spine surgeon, he is known as one of the foremost experts on spine tumors and developed the first-ever Spine Tumor Classification system, which continues to be used around the world. In 1998, Dr. Weinstein founded the multidisciplinary Spine Center at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, which has become an international model for patient-centered health care delivery, incorporating shared decision-making and patient self-reported outcomes into clinical practice. He is the winner of the Wiltse Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine. He is the Editor in Chief of the journal Spine, and author of more than 300 papers and articles, including the Musculoskeletal Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (2011) and currently serves on the Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice.

Hortensia d. Amaro

Hortensia de Los Angeles Amaro is Dean's Professor of Social Work and Preventive Medicine, and Associate Vice Provost of Community Research Initiatives at the University of Southern California. She has dramatically advanced the understanding of substance abuse disorder treatment, HIV prevention and other urgent public health challenges through a distinguished career that has spanned scholarly research, translation of science to practice, top-level policy consultation and service on four Institute of Medicine committees. Before joining USC in 2012, Dr. Amaro was with Northeastern University for 10 years, serving as associate dean and distinguished professor of health sciences and counseling psychology of the Bouvé College of Health Sciences, and as founder and director of the university's Institute on Urban Health Research. For 18 years prior to that, she was professor in the Boston University School of Public Health and in the Department of Pediatrics at the Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Amaro received her doctorate in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1982 and was awarded honorary doctoral degrees in humane letters by Simmons College in 1994 and the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology in 2012. She has received numerous awards, most recently the APHA Elizabeth Beckman Professors Who Inspire Award (2014) and the Sedgwick Memorial Medal for Public Health Service (2015). She has authored more than 140 scholarly publications, many widely-cited, and she has made landmark contributions to improving behavioral health care in community-based organizations by launching addiction treatment programs that have helped thousands of families and informing practice in agencies around the world. Dr. Amaro is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (2010) and currently serves on the Institute of Medicine (IOM) Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice; the IOM Standing Committee on Integrating New Behavioral Health Measures in the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's Data Collection Programs; and the IOM Workshop Steering Committee on Integrating New Measures of Trauma and Recovery (chair) into the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration's Data Collection Programs.

Elizabeth Baca

Dr. Elizabeth Baca is passionate about innovations to foster total health and well-being. She currently serves as the Senior Health Advisor in the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR). She is engaged in innovation in the public sector to foster health through multiple projects including healthy planning, big data, and public-private partnerships. For healthy planning she works across sectors to foster collaboration, elevate the connection between health and the built environment, and leads the effort to incorporate health considerations into the planning process to build healthy, resilient communities. A significant part of her work is aligning win-wins for projects that offer co-benefits, particularly with respect to climate mitigation and adaptation efforts. For big data, she is working on projects to link data sets to the planning process. Additionally, she serves as a lead for the Governor’s Initiative to Advance Precision Medicine. Through her role in OPR, she is an advisor for the USGBC Building Health Initiative and FS6, a new Food System Accelerator. Previously, she served on the General Pediatric Faculty at Stanford Medical School and directed the Community Pediatric and Child Advocacy Rotation. In addition to teaching medical students and residents about the social, economic, and environmental factors that affect health, Dr. Baca was the lead faculty mentor on several projects to increase access to healthy foods, reduce environmental triggers of asthma, increase physical activity opportunities, and improve the built environment. Dr. Baca studied health policy at Universidad Simon Bolivar in Venezuela. She completed her Masters in Public Administration at Harvard Kennedy School of Government and her Doctorate of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Baca completed her pediatric residency in the Pediatric Leadership for the Underserved (PLUS) program at University of California, San Francisco.

Bruce N. Calonge

Ned Calonge is the President and CEO of The Colorado Trust, a private grant-making foundation dedicated to achieving health equity for all Coloradans. Dr. Calonge is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine at the Colorado School of Medicine, University of Colorado, Denver, and an Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health. Nationally, he chairs the CDC’s Evaluating Genomic Applications for Practice and Prevention (EGAPP) Working Group; the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ’s) Electronic Data Methods (EDM) Forum Advisory Committee; and is a member of the CDC’s Task Force on Community Preventive Services and of CDC’s Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection and Control Advisory Committee. Dr. Calonge received his B.A. in Chemistry from The Colorado College, his M.D. from the University of Colorado, and his M.P.H. from the University of Washington, where he also completed his preventive medicine residency. He completed his family medicine residency at the Oregon Health Sciences University. He is a past Chair of the United States Preventive Services Task Force and is a past member of the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Heritable Disorders in Newborns and Children. Prior to coming to The Trust, Dr. Calonge was the Chief Medical Officer of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. He is a National Academy of Medicine member (elected in 2011). Dr. Calonge serves on the Institute of Medicine’s Board on Population Health and Public Health Practice as well as on the Roundtable on the Achievement of Health Equity and the Elimination of Health Disparities.

Bechara Choucair

Bechara Choucair is Senior Vice President of Safety Net Transformation & Community Health at Trinity Health. Dr. Choucair is responsible for working directly with Trinity Health Regional Health Ministries (RHMs) to improve the health of populations and impact the community-based social determinants of health. He is responsible for the development of new care delivery models and new relationships with payers, public health agencies, and community organizations. He and his team are also responsible for leading community benefits throughout the ministry. For five years prior to joining Trinity Health, Dr. Choucair was the commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH). There he and his team launched Healthy Chicago, the city’s first comprehensive public health agenda. Since its launch, CDPH has reported historic lows in childhood obesity rates and both teen and adult smoking rates, as well as significant increases in overall life expectancy. Under his leadership, CDPH became the first big city public health agency to be awarded national accreditation. Prior to his appointment as CDPH commissioner, he served as the executive director of Heartland Health Centers in Chicago and as the medical director of Crusader Community Health in Rockford, Illinois. Dr. Choucair serves on numerous boards and has a faculty appointment at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University. Dr. Choucair, a family physician by training, holds an M.D. from the American University of Beirut and a master's degree in health care management from the University of Texas at Dallas. In addition to earning a number of local and national awards, he was named one of Chicago's 40 under 40 by Crain's Chicago Business in 2012.

Alison E. Cuellar

Alison Evans Cuellar, Ph.D., M.B.A., Associate Professor of Health Administration and Policy, has extensive research experience in health care systems, Medicaid, mental health, and justice involved populations. Her contributions include work on identifying and evaluating new organizational forms, such as hospital systems and physician alliances, and their effects on quality, efficiency, costs, prices, and technology adoption. In other work supported by the National Institute of Mental Health, she has examined the intersection of behavioral health and the juvenile justice systems; on Medicaid policies and their impact on justice-involved youth and youth with behavioral health problems; on mental health courts as an innovative alternative for juvenile delinquents; and on health care services for incarcerated youth and adults returning to the community. She was a member of a national collaborative Mental Health Policy network supported by the MacArthur Foundation. She also was co-investigator on a pediatric health needs assessment in Washington, D.C. with a special focus on vulnerable and minority populations. In addition, she spent the 2005-06 academic year as a visiting economist to the U.S. Department of Justice. She is co-editor of the Economic Grand Rounds column in the journal Psychiatric Services. Her work has been published in several journals, including Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Journal of Health Economics, American Journal of Public Health, Health Affairs, Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, American Journal of Psychiatry and Psychiatric Services, among others. Previously, Dr. Cuellar was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University.

Robert H. Dugger

Robert H. Dugger is a Co-Founder of ReadyNation and chairman of its Advisory Board. ReadyNation is the preeminent business leader organization working to strengthen business through better policies for children and youth. Dr. Dugger’s main interest is early child development and organizing strong business coalitions in states to support high-return investment spending in children, prenatal to five years old. Dr. Dugger began his career at the Federal Reserve Board in 1972, and in the 1980s served on the staffs of the House and Senate banking committees and the American Bankers Association. From 1992 to 2008 he was a partner in Tudor Investment Corporation. Together with Dr. James Heckman, University of Chicago professor and Nobel Prize winner, and Dr. Steven Durlauf of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Dr. Dugger heads the Global Working Group on Human Capital and Economic Opportunity at the Becker-Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago. Dr. Dugger is also the former board chairman of Singita-Grumeti Reserves, a Tanzanian wildlife conservation and tourism project regularly ranked number one in the world. Dr. Dugger received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a Federal Reserve Dissertation Fellowship. He has received numerous awards and recognitions including: the McCormick Foundation’s Center for Early Childhood Leadership’s “Corporate Champion for Change” award in 2014, ZERO TO THREE’s “Reiner Award for Outstanding Advocacy on Behalf of Very Young Children” in 2013, the Committee for Economic Development’s “Trustee Leadership Award” in 2008, and most recently, ReadyNation's 2015 "Business Leader Champion for Children" award.

Chandra Ford

Chandra Ford is Associate Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her areas of expertise include HIV/AIDS prevention and care; HIV testing among older adults; the social determinants of health/social epidemiology; conceptualizing and measuring racism, race and ethnicity; Public Health Critical Race Praxis (PHCRP)/Critical Race Theory; and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) health disparities. Dr. Ford earned her Ph.D. from the Gillings School of Public Health at the University of North Carolina and received her M.P.H. and M.L.I.S from the University of Pittsburgh. She completed postdoctoral fellowships in the Department of Social Medicine at the University of North Carolina and the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University, where she was a W. K. Kellogg Foundation Kellogg Health Scholar. Dr. Ford has received several competitive awards. She currently is a Kaiser Permanente Chris Burch Leadership Awardee.

Robert Garcia

Robert García is a civil rights advocate who engages, educates, and empowers communities for equal access to public resources. He is the Founding Director and Counsel of The City Project, a non-profit legal and policy advocacy team in Los Angeles, California. The City Project works with diverse allies on equal access to (1) healthy green land use through community planning; (2) climate justice; (3) quality education including physical education; (4) health equity; and (5) economic vitality for all, including creating jobs and avoiding displacement. Mr. Garcia has extensive experience in public policy, legal advocacy, mediation, and litigation involving complex social justice, civil rights, human health, environmental, education, and criminal justice matters. He has influenced the investment of over $43 billion in underserved communities, working at the intersection of equal justice, public health, and the built environment. Previously he served as chairman of the Citizens' School Bond Oversight Committee for five years, helping raise over $27 billion to build new, and modernize existing, public schools as centers of their communities in Los Angeles. Robert served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund. Mr. Garcia graduated from Stanford University and Stanford Law School, where he served on the Board of Editors of the Stanford Law Review. He received the President's Award from the California Attorneys for Criminal Justice for helping release Geronimo Pratt, the former Black Panther leader, from prison after 27 years for a crime he did not commit. He represented people on Death Row in Georgia, Florida, and Mississippi. Stanford Law School called him a "civil rights giant" and Stanford Magazine “an inspiration.” He is an immigrant who came to the U.S. from Guatemala at age four.

Helene D. Gayle

Helene Gayle is CEO of McKinsey Social Initiative. She was formerly the President and CEO of CARE USA . he also has served as the director of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s HIV, TB and Reproductive Health Program and directed HIV, STD, and TB prevention activities at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). During her nearly two decades at CDC, Dr. Gayle also studied malnutrition in children in the United States and internationally, evaluated and implemented child survival programs in Africa, and worked on HIV/AIDS research, programs, and policy. Dr. Gayle received her M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and Master of Public Health degree from Johns Hopkins University. She has published numerous articles on public health and has received many awards for her scientific and public health contributions. She is a National Academy of Medicine member (1998) and has served on the Council of the National Academy of Medicine; the Committee on the U.S. Commitment to Global Health; and the Keck Futures Initiative Genomics Steering Committee.

Andrew Grant-Thomas

Andrew Grant-Thomas is the Co-Director at EmbraceRace, an online community of parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, teachers and guidance counselors, day care providers, young people and caring adults. He is also a race and social justice consultant, currently serving or having served in that capacity with the Haas Institute, the Democracy Fund, Open Society Foundations, Kellogg Foundation, Tufts Public Health Programs, and the Fetzer Institute, among others. Previously he was the Director of Programs at the Proteus Fund, a national foundation committed to advancing justice through democracy, human rights and peace. At Proteus, Andrew worked on issues that include race and redistricting; money in politics; civil liberties, human rights, and national security policy; death penalty abolition; and social equity in philanthropy. Dr. Grant-Thomas was previously the Deputy Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at the Ohio State University, where he oversaw much of the Institute’s US-based and global justice programming, directed its biannual Transforming Race conference, and served as Editor-in-Chief of its journal, Race/Ethnicity: Multidisciplinary Global Contexts. Andrew came to Kirwan Institute from the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, where he oversaw preparations for the 2003 Color Lines Conference and managed a range of policy-oriented racial justice projects. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Literature from Yale University, his Master’s in International Relations from the University of Chicago, and his Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago.

Carol Keehan

Sister Carol Keehan, DC, is the ninth president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association of the United States (CHA). She assumed her duties in October 2005. She is responsible for all association operations and leads CHA's staff at offices in Washington, D.C., where she is based, and in St. Louis. Sr. Carol worked in administrative and governance positions at hospitals sponsored by the Daughters of Charity for more than 35 years. Prior to joining CHA, she was the board chair of Ascension Health's Sacred Heart Health System, Pensacola, Florida. Previously, she served for 15 years as president and chief executive officer of Providence Hospital, which includes Carroll Manor Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, in Washington, D.C. Currently Sr. Carol serves on the boards of St. John's University, Queens, NY, and Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. She has served on the boards of the District of Columbia Hospital Association, of which she is a past chair; Care First/Blue Cross of Maryland and the National Capital Area, Owings Mills, Maryland, and its affiliate, Group Hospitalization and Medical Services, Inc. In addition, she has previously served on the nominating committee of the American Hospital Association; the finance committee of the Maryland Hospital Association; and is a past chair of the Florida State Human Rights Advocacy Commission. Sr. Carol earned a bachelor of science degree in nursing from St. Joseph's College, Emmitsburg, Maryland, where she graduated magna cum laude, and a Master of Science degree in business administration from the University of South Carolina, from which she received the School of Business Distinguished Alumna Award in 2000 and was honored in 2009 as "an outstanding alumna who has served others in a manner that goes beyond what is required by the individual's job or profession. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors including: American Hospital Association's Trustee Award; the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice (Cross for the Church and Pontiff), bestowed by Pope Benedict XVI; the American Cardinals' Encouragement Award; and the Medal of Honor and the Monsignor George C. Higgins Labor Advocacy Award from the Archdiocese of Washington. Sr. Carol was named in 2010 one of TIME magazine's "100 Most Influential People in the World" and has been on Modern Healthcare's list of "100 Most Influential People in Healthcare" several years, having topped the list as number one in 2007. Sr. Carol received honorary doctorates from Niagara University, NY.; the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA.; St. John's University, Queens, NY; The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C.; Marymount University, Arlington, VA; and from DePaul University, Chicago. Sr. Carol is a National Academy of Medicine member.

Christopher Lyons

Christopher J. Lyons, associate professor of sociology at the University of New Mexico, studies violence and social control as a window into the sources and consequences of social inequality. His research has developed around two principal areas: 1) race/ethnicity and socio-legal control, and 2) the spatial distribution of violence across communities. Work within these two areas explores themes relevant to urban and political sociology, stratification, and intergroup relations. He has sought to advance theoretical and empirical inquiries into the social construction and etiology of hate crime and racially motivated crime, race/ethnicity and crime clearance, the stratification consequences of incarceration and criminal justice intervention, perceptions of racial discrimination, the political foundations of neighborhood inequality and violence, and domestic violence. Along with colleagues Maria Velez (UNM) and Laurie Krivo (Rutgers), he is currently working on an NSF-funded project to collect a second wave of the National Neighborhoods and Crime Study (NNCS-2) that will provide unique two-panel crime and demographic data for neighborhoods across 91 large cities in the U.S.

Kent C. McGuire

Kent McGuire is President and CEO at the Southern Education Foundation. Dr. McGuire is responsible for SEF’s mission to advance equity and excellence in education in the American South. Prior to joining SEF, Dr. McGuire served as the Dean of the College of Education at Temple University and was a tenured professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies. Previously Dr. McGuire was Senior Vice President at MDRC, Inc. Before that he served in the Clinton Administration as Assistant Secretary of the US Department of Education. His prior non-profit work included being the Education Program Officer for the Philadelphia-based Pew Charitable Trusts and serving as Education Program Director for the Lilly Endowment. He received his Ph.D. in public administration from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and his M.A. in education administration and policy from Columbia University Teacher’s College. He has written and coauthored various policy reports, book chapters and papers in professional journals. He currently serves on many boards including: Cornerstone Literacy, the Institute for Education Leadership, The New Teacher Project, and Alliance for Excellent Education. He is currently serving on the NRC Committee for the Five Year (2009-2013) Summative Evaluation of the District of Columbia Public Schools (2012-2015), and previously served on the Committee on Defining Deeper Learning and 21st Century Skills and the Committee on Independent Evaluation of DC Public Schools.

Julie Morita

Julie Morita is the Commissioner for the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH). She was appointed to this position following 15 years of service to the department. As Medical Director for the Immunization Program, Dr. Morita fostered partnerships with health systems and the private sector, achieving recognition for both the improvements in and overall coverage rates. In 2009, Dr. Morita led the City’s response to the pandemic influenza outbreak, developing a system to distribute more than one million doses of vaccine to clinics and residents across the City. In 2014, as Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Morita led the City’s efforts to prevent the introduction and spread of the Ebola virus, including developing and launching the Chicago Ebola Resource Network, the first local network of medical centers working jointly to prepare and respond to a possible Ebola case. Dr. Morita has represented local public health as a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the National Vaccine Advisory Committee, the Illinois Immunization Advisory Committee, Chicago Area Immunization Campaign, and the Illinois Chapter of American Academy of Pediatrics. Prior to her time with CDPH, Dr. Morita served as an Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer with the CDC and worked in private practice. Dr. Morita is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical School.

Patricia (Tia) Powell

Tia Powell is Director of the Montefiore Einstein Center for Bioethics and of the Einstein Cardozo Master of Science in Bioethics program at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Health System. She is also Professor of Clinical Epidemiology, Division of Bioethics, and Clinical Psychiatry. Dr. Powell has bioethics expertise in public policy, dementia, consultation, end of life care, decision-making capacity, bioethics education and the ethics of public health disasters. Prior to her positions at Einstein and Montefiore, she served four years as Executive Director of the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law, which functions as New York State’s bioethics commission. Dr. Powell graduated magna cum laude from Harvard-Radcliffe College. At Yale Medical School (from which she earned her M.D., 1987) she earned the Parker Prize, Yale’s highest award for a graduating medical student. She completed her internship, psychiatric residency and Consultation-Liaison fellowship at Columbia. She is a board certified psychiatrist and Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, the American Psychiatric Association and The Hastings Center. She has worked with the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on many projects related to public health and ethics, and most recently served on the Committee on the Public Health Dimensions of Cognitive Aging.

Lisbeth B. Schorr

Lisbeth (Lee) Schorr is a Senior Fellow of the Center for the Study of Social Policy. Her work is currently focused on efforts to broaden the conventional understanding of evidence as applied to the design, improvement, and evaluation of complex initiatives, and on promoting a results orientation to the reform of social policies and programs. With a group of colleagues, she recently founded The Friends of Evidence, which works to strengthen the role of evidence in efforts (public and philanthropic, local, regional, and national) to ensure the wise allocation of scarce resources, and to improve outcomes among the children and families who are not faring well in today’s society. Ms. Schorr has extensive experience in social policy, community building, education, health and human service programs– which has helped her to become a national authority on how to improve the future of disadvantaged children and their families and neighborhoods. She serves on the board of the SEED Foundation, was the founding co-chair of the Aspen Institute’s Roundtable on Community Change, and has held leadership positions in many of the major national efforts on behalf of children and youth, including the National Center for Children in Poverty, City Year, and the Foundation for Child Development. From 1998 to 2007 she was a member of the National Selection Committee of the Ford Foundation/Kennedy School Awards for Innovations in American Government. From 1965 to 1967 she headed the health division of the Community Action Program at the federal Office of Economic Opportunity. Ms. Schorr has published two books regarding social problems and children and families. Her 1988 book, Within Our Reach: Breaking the Cycle of Disadvantage, analyzed programs and strategies that succeeded in effectively combating serious social problems. In Common Purpose: Strengthening Families and Neighborhoods to Rebuild America, published in September 1997, she laid out the evidence that by acting strategically, and focusing on the systems contexts in which programs are implemented, it is possible to strengthen children and families and to rebuild communities. She has been awarded honorary doctorate degrees from Whittier College, Lewis and Clark College, Wheelock College, the University of Maryland, Bank Street College of Education, and Wilkes University. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and has served on numerous Institute of Medicine committees including: Committee for Increasing High School Students' Engagement and Motivation to Learn; Board on Children, Youth and Families; the Steering Group of the National Forum on the Future of Children and Their Families, and the Forum on Global Violence Prevention.

Nick Tilsen

Nick is a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation and the founding Executive Director of the Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation. Nick has over 15 years of experience in working with non-profits and tribal nations on projects that have a social mission. Early in his non-profit career Nick worked with the Odyssey: USTREK which educated 500,000 students world wide through the use of the Internet. He went on to found the Lakota Action Network which fought to protect Native American sacred sites, provide community organizing training while educating tribes in the implementation of sustainable renewable energy practices. As the founding executive director of Thunder Valley CDC Nick has played a vital role in creating a community development organization that is working with the local grassroots people and national organizations in the development of a sustainable regenerative community, that creates jobs, builds homes and creates new opportunity on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Nick also facilitated the Oglala Lakota Plan a process funded by the HUD Office of Sustainable Housing & Communities to create a reservation wide plan for Sustainable Development for the Oglala Lakota Nation. This plan was the largest most comprehensive plan in the history of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and was eventually adopted as the official Regional Sustainable Development Plan of the Tribe, to date the plan has leveraged over 12 million dollars into the region to improve housing, transportation and create jobs. In 2012 Tilsen was recognized by President Barak Obama at the White House Tribal Nations Conference saying that “day by day, family by family, community by community, Nick and his non-profit have helped inspire a new beginning for Pine Ridge”.

William Wyman

William W. Wyman began his career at the management consulting firm Booz Allen and Hamilton. After working for the firm in New York, Duesseldorf Germany, Athens Greece, and Dallas Texas, he returned to New York to become the President of the Management Consulting Group, a member of the executive committee, and a member of the Board of Directors.
In 1984, Mr. Wyman co-founded Oliver Wyman & Co, a general management consulting firm focused on the financial industries. The firm grew rapidly and, in 2004, it became part of Marsh & McLennan. Today, the firm is one of the worlds leading management consulting firms, employing nearly 4,000 professionals in 26 countries.
More recently, Mr. Wyman has served as a director/advisor to nearly two dozen public and private companies in the finance and technology industries. He also has served as an advisor to several private equity partnerships. Mr. Wyman has been a member of the Board of Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, Mary Hitchcock Hospital and the Dartmouth Hitchcock clinic. Some years ago, he and his wife founded an organization in Rwanda that has developed a model for the delivery of primary healthcare in rural Africa. Mr. Wyman received his BA from Colgate University, and his MBA from the Harvard Business School. He served in the U.S.Navy before starting his career. He resides in Hanover, NH.

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Community Based Solutions to Promote Health Equity in the United States

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