Healthy Communities Online

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo, Chair Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California at San Francisco, on a National Academy of Sciences Committee she recently chaired on the social determinants of health. She discusses their ground-breaking report on how to incorporate social care into health care, shifting the American health system towards better management of upstream causes of poor health.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Diana Bianchi, Director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the NIH, the largest funder of health research in the world. She oversees a $1.5 billion budget conducting research in all phases of child health from maternal and reproductive health, to infant diagnostics, adolescence into adulthood, and all people with intellectual disabilities.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter celebrate 10 years on the air and our 500th episode with Congressman James Clyburn (D-SC), House Majority Whip and the third ranking Democrat in Congress. He talks about the legacy of the Affordable Care Act in advancing health equity, and the need to strengthen the nation’s community health centers through a national broadband and telehealth initiative to more effectively deploy quality health care to all Americans.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter speak with Dr. Patrice Harris, the 174th President of the American Medical Association and the first African American woman to hold the post. She talks about the AMA’s efforts to innovate for the evolving health care of the 21st century, with a focus on tackling the opioid crisis, addressing racial disparities in the medical profession, and advancing health coverage, equity and behavioral health parity for all Americans.

This week, hosts Mark Masselli and Margaret Flinter welcome Susannah Sirkin, Director of Policy at Physicians for Human Rights, an organization using the power of medicine and science to document human rights violations in conflict zones around the world. She discusses their recent report on Syria’s attack on its own health care system, the banning of land mines and their work documenting trauma experienced by refugees and asylum seekers here and around the globe.