SkinnyTrees: Lift Health for All

Join us in this special episode featuring the Chicago Cancer Health Equity Collaborative (CHEC) Fellows Program 2023 cohort. This program brings undergrad and postbac students together in preparation for careers in social, behavioral, and biomedical research and in health care. They share with us their experiences with the CHEC Fellows program including highlights and “aha” moments and how it has enriched their career paths. Interested in joining ChicagoCHEC program in 2024? - Applications open in November apply here: https://chicagochec.org/fellows/ Contact us at: skinnytreespodcast@gmail.com skinnytreespodcast.com @SkinnyTrees312 on Twitter

In this limited series of episodes, we have conversations with a variety of experts and community leaders in the field of maternal and child health to discuss how to advance maternal health equity. In this episode we spoke with CHET Director/Founder -- Dr. Melissa Simon. Melissa A. Simon, MD, MPH is the George H. Gardner Professor of Clinical Gynecology, Vice Chair of Research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. She is also the Founder and Director of the Center for Health Equity Transformation and the Chicago Cancer Health Equity Collaborative. She serves as the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Associate Director for Community Outreach and Engagement. She is an expert in implementation science, women’s health across the lifespan, minority health, community engagement and health equity. She has been recognized with numerous awards for her substantial contribution to excellence in health equity scholarship, women’s health and mentorship, including her recent election to the National Academy of Medicine and the Association of American Physicians. She has received the Presidential Award in Excellence in Science Mathematics and Engineering Mentorship and is a Presidential Leadership Scholar. She is a former member of the US Preventive Services Task Force and serves on the NIH Office of Research in Women’s Health Advisory Committee. For more information on maternal health projects, please visit: - https://www.feinberg.northwestern.edu/sites/chet/ - https://well-mama.org/

In this limited series of episodes, we have conversations with a variety of experts and community leaders in the field of maternal and child health to discuss how to advance maternal health equity. In this episode we spoke with Kelly Davis, MPA who is co-founder and Chief Equity Officer at KINSHIFT. KINSHIFT supports healthcare and public health transformation through evidence-based practices rooted in actionable principles of trauma-and-resilience-informed care and anti-racism. She's also the former Chief of Birth Equity Innovation at the National Birth Equity Collaborative (NBEC), which creates solutions to optimize Black maternal and infant health. Prior to NBEC, Ms. Davis led a series of innovative initiatives for the NYC Health Department (DOHMH). During her tenure at DOHMH, Ms. Davis led healthy eating and active living initiatives and served as one of the founding members of the Center for Health Equity, where she conceptualized the Family Wellness Suites, community respite and healing spaces for parents and children. Ms. Davis also spearheaded planning, implementation and oversight of several special initiatives, including the City’s first HIV public awareness campaign totally focused on women and a maternal morbidity and mortality initiative supporting 14 maternity hospitals in a long-term institutional transformation process that addresses structural racism, bias, resilience, and trauma-informed care. RESOURCES: - Physician-patient racial concordance and disparities in birthing mortality for newborns. (2020) https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/117/35/21194.full.pdf - Black Maternal Health Research Re-Envisioned: Best Practices for the Conduct of Research With, For, and By Black Mamas. https://harvardlpr.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/11/BMMA-Research-Working-Group.pdf - The Cycle to Respectful Care: A Qualitative Approach to the Creation of an Actionable Framework to Address Maternal Outcome Disparities. (2021) https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/9/4933/htm

In this limited series of episodes, we have conversations with a variety of experts and community leaders in the field of maternal and child health to discuss how to advance maternal health equity. In this episode we spoke with Dr. Kathryn (Katie) Schubert who is President and CEO of the Society for Women’s Health Research (SWHR), where she leads the organization’s efforts to promote research on sex as a biological variable and improve women’s health through science, policy and education. RESOURCES: - https://www.familyequality.org/resources/preparing-for-pregnancy-as-a-non-binary-person/ - https://www.acog.org/education-and-events/creog/curriculum-resources/additional-curricular-resources/transgender-health-care - https://swhr.org/

In this limited series of episodes, we have conversations with a variety of experts and community leaders in the field of maternal and child health to discuss how to advance maternal health equity. In this episode we spoke with Dr. Carolyn Sufrin who is a medical anthropologist and obstetrician/gynecologist at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. She worked as a physician at the San Francisco jail from 2007-2013, where she started an onsite women's health specialty clinic. Her work is dedicated to research, advocacy, and care for incarcerated women, especially at the intersection of health care and criminal justice system reform. Dr. Sufrin currently leads Advocacy and Research on Reproductive Wellness of Incarcerated People (ARRWIP). ARRWIP is a group of researchers examining the intersections of reproductive justice and the criminal legal system out of Johns Hopkins University. ARRWIP started with the Pregnancy in Prison Statistics (PIPS) Project: the first-ever systematic study of pregnancy outcomes from carceral institutions in the U.S. She is also author of the book JailCare: Finding the Safety Net for Women Behind Bars – published in 2017 that focuses on the experiences of incarcerated pregnant women as well as on the practices of the jail guards and health providers who care for them. Her book describes the contradictory ways that care and maternal identity emerge within a punitive space presumed to be devoid of care. RESOURCES: •https://www.jailcare.org/

In this limited series of episodes, we have conversations with a variety of experts and community leaders in the field of maternal and child health to discuss how to advance maternal health equity. In this episode we spoke with Janel Hughes-Jones, a bilingual breastfeeding Peer Counselor (PC), with more than 18 years of experience working with many organizations to facilitate breastfeeding communities in public health, hospital, educational, business and faith based settings in the State of Illinois. She was the co-chair of JABA (Joliet Alliance of Breastfeeding Advocates)from 2004 - 2019. She is the President and Founder of Milk of the Heart Inc. a 501-c3 breastfeeding education, support and advocacy non-profit, where she raises funds for equity projects like hiring a translator to translate the “Illinois Breastfeeding Law Card” into Spanish and receiving donations to build incentive bags for women to take an infant feeding class. She is a proud member of BELA, Birth Equity Leadership Academy, (Health Connect One) and has been a long time speaker at the Illinois’ Baby Expo, Northwestern University, and APHA’s Annual Meeting/Expo. She was a co-author to scientist, Lauren Keenan-Devlin’s and Dr. Ann Borders’ recently published work in the Journal of Perinatology, April of 2021 entitled, “Clinically integrated breastfeeding peer counseling and breastfeeding outcomes.” RESOURCES: • Firstdroplets.com • Womenhealth.gov • Wicbreastfeeding.fns.usda.gov • Magicalhour.org (9 stages of attachment) • Breastfeedingresourcesontario.ca (positioning and latching-scroll down to how to engage the chin first before latching) • svucko@vuckolaw.com a women’s workplace rights firm

In this limited series of episodes, we have conversations with a variety of experts and community leaders in the field of maternal and child health to discuss how to advance maternal health equity. In this episode we spoke with Dr. Ashish Premkumar, a maternal-fetal medicine clinician/researcher at the John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County in Chicago, IL. Topics include Adverse Childhood Events (ACEs) and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) as it relates to pregnancy and birth outcomes. Dr. Premkumar has a particular interest in merging social scientific theory with clinical education, practice, and research. He has pursued research focused on anthropological questions of risk, stigma, and inequity surrounding pregnancy, particularly among pregnant people with illicit substance use disorders. He also has performed work on racial and ethnic inequities in perinatal health outcomes, as well as the effects of sociopolitical and economic marginalization on adverse health outcomes during the peripartum period.

In this limited series of episodes, we have conversations with a variety of experts and community leaders in the field of maternal and child health to discuss how to advance maternal health equity. In this episode we spoke with Dr. Rishi Agrawal, a pediatric hospitalist at La Rabida children's hospital - a partner of Lurie Children's Hospital. His research interests include health services research and advocacy for systems and policy improvement. Topics include medicaid program in relation to pregnant women in Illinois.

In this special episode, a ChicagoCHEC Fellows Alumnus -- Maxson Joseph -- talks with two high school students part of the UIC Champions Vaccination Cohort. UIC Champions is a summer program with its goal of empowering Chicago youth to become community leaders, create pathways to health professions careers and advance health equity. More info at https://twitter.com/uic_champions Join us at the upcoming event mentioned in the podcast! Summer Youth Leadership Event: State of the Pandemic: What Youth and their Families Need to Know as Vaccine Eligibility Expands. Scheduled for Saturday, June 5th from 11am-12pm CST, this event will feature Dr. Geraldine Luna, the Medical Director of the COVID-19 Initiative at the Chicago Department of Public Health and Dr. Melissa Simon, the Director of the Center for Health Equity Transformation. To register for this event, visit http://bit.ly/June5YLE. Contact us at: skinnytreespodcast@gmail.com skinnytreespodcast.com @SkinnyTrees312 on Twitter

Join us in this special episode featuring the Chicago Cancer Health Equity Collaborative (CHEC) Fellows Program 2020 cohort. This program brings undergrad and postbac students together in preparation for careers in social, behavioral, and biomedical research and in health care. They share with us their experiences with the CHEC Fellows during a pandemic and ongoing social unrest, program highlights and “aha” moments from summer 2020 and how it has enriched their career paths. Interested in joining ChicagoCHEC program in 2021? - Applications NOW open until March 1st, 2021: https://chicagochec.org/opportunities/education-training-programs/research-fellows/ - Find out more at https://chicagochec.org Background music from FreeMusicArchive.org licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0: - We Are Stardust by Ketsa - Mountain Flowers by Siddhartha Corsus - Ode to Awareness by Siddhartha Corsus - Gazing by Andy G. Cohen - maria durch ein dornwald ging by Dee Yan-Key - Floating in Clouds by Lobo Loco - Drift Release by Ketsa - Bye Bye by Crowander - Slow Rising by Ketsa - Empire of Light by Siddhartha Corsus - New Soul by Ketsa - Flash by Yung Kartz - Confused by Maikaih Beats Contact us at: skinnytreespodcast@gmail.com skinnytreespodcast.com @SkinnyTrees312 on Twitter

This episode was recorded on May 11, 2020. Thank you for joining us on SkinnyTrees: Lift Health for All. We like many of our fellow Chicagoans, are staying home and practicing physical distancing to flatten the curve. We are here to present a mini-series: COVID-19 in our Chicago communities. This episode features our co-host Araceli Estrada interviewing Greg Trotter, Senior Public Relations Manager, the spokesperson for the Greater Chicago Food Depository. He was a food business reporter for the Chicago Tribute where he often wrote stories about SNAP benefits and inequities in access to food. He strongly believes that no one should go hungry! Chicago Greater Food Depository Find Food Map: https://www.chicagosfoodbank.org/find-food/ Donate to the Chicago Greater Food Depository: https://secure2.convio.net/gcfd/site/Donation2?8743.donation=form1&df_id=8743&mfc_pref=T

NOTE: This episode was recorded on January 9th, 2020. Our guest for this special episode during Hispanic Heritage Month is José López – a prominent community leader and Executive Director of The Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Chicago, which he co-founded in 1973. He has written extensively on the political and social reality of Puerto Ricans in the United States while serving as an adjunct instructor at Northeastern Illinois University, Columbia College and the University of Illinois at Chicago. Your host for this episode is Maggie Nava – a longtime community advocate from our Center for Health Equity Transformation - who currently serves as Site Director for the Chicago Cancer Health Equity Collaborative at Northwestern University. Featured Guest: - José López, more info and bio available here: https://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/November-2014/Jose-Lopez-Humboldt-Park/ CONTACT US: – skinnytreespodcast@gmail.com – twitter.com/skinnytrees312 Outro music: - "Coco" performed Live at WFMU on Transpacific Sound Paradise with Rob Weisberg, 10/26/2015 by Radio Jarocho and Zenen Zeferino Huervo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

NOTE: This episode was recorded in October 2019. The SkinnyTrees podcast team took a field trip to an urban farm on Chicago’s south side. Founded in 2017, the Urban Growers Collective (UGC) aims to address the inequities and structural racism that exist in the food system and in underserved communities. Their vision is to use urban agriculture to cultivate pathways to freedom through food and healing. Their goal is to build economic opportunity for Chicago’s youth; reduce food insecurity, and increase access to affordable fresh produce and healthy food. UGC operates eight urban farms on 11-acers of land predominantly located on Chicago’s South Side. More info at: https://blockclubchicago.org/2020/08/07/32-million-auburn-gresham-urban-farm-coming-to-life-after-state-grants-last-2-million-to-project/ Guests: Malcolm Evans, Production Manager https://urbangrowerscollective.org/team/malcolmevans/ CONTACT US: – skinnytreespodcast@gmail.com – twitter.com/skinnytrees312 Outro music provided by: -JB Positive Music: @jbpositivemusic

This episode was recorded on May 4, 2020. Thank you for joining us on SkinnyTrees: Lift Health for All. We like many of our fellow Chicagoans, are staying home and practicing social distancing to flatten the curve. We are here to present a mini-series: COVID-19 in our Chicago communities. This episode features our co-host, Rabih Dahdouh, interviewing Dr. Garth Walker, MD, MPH who is an emergency medicine attending physician at the Jesse Brown Veteran Affairs Hospital. Dr. Walker is post-doctoral trainee at our Center for Health Equity Transformation working with the Northwestern Medicine Emergency Department and Northwestern Buehler Center for Health Policy and Economics investigating social determinants of health in firearm injury recidivism and healthcare disparities related to opioid mortalities. Dr. Walker is also co-founder, chief medical officer and head of innovation for Clinify Inc. A tech platform that utilizes social determinant of health indicators to improve patient engagement, healthcare outcomes and reduce healthcare cost for vulnerable populations. More info here: https://www.clinifyhealth.com/

Note: This episode was recorded on March 12, 2020, just days before the Governor of Illinois instituted a stay-at-home order due to the coronavirus outbreak. In this episode we connected with Kimberly Soenen (short bio below) to discuss the importance of language in health and her ongoing art exhibit "SOME PEOPLE" (Every)Body. The ongoing project examines the ethics, people, processes, and systems that constitute the maintenance of, and barriers to, health for human beings. With this exhibition, the group of high performing contributing artists, photographers, essayists and physicians are asking the seminal question of our time: How do people define "health insurance," "healthcare,” “Public Health” and "health?” Contact: https://www.somepeopleeverybody.com/ @SomePeopleEveryBody https://www.instagram.com/somepeopleeverybody/ KimberlyJSoenen@Gmail.com Episode photo caption: Youth. Paul Michael at the Dunes. Photo by Kimberly J. Soenen. Outro Music Credits: Original Music by Wilson Tanner Smith on piano - “Freddie" (2013)

This episode was recorded on April 20th, 2020. Thank you for joining us on SkinnyTrees: Lift Health for All. We like many of our fellow Chicagoans, are staying home and practicing social distancing to flatten the curve. We are here to present a mini-series: COVID-19 in our Chicago communities. This episode features our co-host, Ivy Leung, interviewing Grace Chan, a long-time community activist and the executive director of the Coalition for Better Chinese American Community. Resources Mentioned in this Episode: *CBCAC Website and Hotline https://cbcacchicago.org/ *Bridgeport mutual aid system https://www.facebook.com/GBMAChicago/ *Asian American Advancing Justice: Reporting Hotline https://www.advancingjustice-aajc.org/covid19

This episode was recorded on April 9th, 2020. Thank you for joining us on SkinnyTrees: Lift Health for All. We like many of our fellow Chicagoans, are staying home and practicing social distancing to flatten the curve. We are here to present a mini-series: COVID-19 in our Chicago communities. This episode features our co-host, Rabih Dahdouh, interviewing Fred Raz, a registered nurse at University of Illinois in Chicago Hospital Health Sciences System. He is currently supporting our city’s efforts to combat coronavirus by administering COVID-19 drive-thru tests.

Thank you for joining us on SkinnyTrees: Lift Health for All. We like many of our fellow Chicagoans, are staying home and practicing social distancing to flatten the curve. We are here to present a mini-series: COVID-19 in our Chicago communities. Each mini episode will focus on a different community in Chicago to find out how they are coping with these difficult times. This episode features our colleague, Ivy Leung interviewing Dr. Marcus Wong. He is an emergency medicine resident at University of Illinois in Chicago, currently rotating at Advocate Lutheran Hospital located in Park Ridge.

Thank you for joining us on SkinnyTrees: Lift Health for All. We like many of our fellow Chicagoans, are staying home and practicing social distancing to flatten the curve. We are here to present a mini-series: COVID-19 in our Chicago communities. Each mini episode will focus on a different community in Chicago to find out how they are coping with these difficult times. This episode features our colleague, Araceli Estrada interviewing Renee Flores, she is a registered nurse and a Home Telehealth Care Coordinator at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Thank you for joining us on SkinnyTrees: Lift Health for All. We like many of our fellow Chicagoans, are staying home and practicing social distancing to flatten the curve. We are here to present a mini-series: COVID-19 in our Chicago communities. Each mini episode will focus on a different community in Chicago to find out how they are coping with these difficult times. This episode features our colleagues, Maggie Nava and Edgardo Ramirez interviewing Dolores Castañeda. Dolores is a longtime community health advocate and a research assistant at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Center for Healthy Work. She is investigating the way precarious work affects black and brown communities and their health. Find more resources on COVID-19 on the City of Chicago's website: www.chicago.gov/city/en/sites/covid-19/home.html Contact us at: -skinnytreespodcast@gmail.com -twitter.com/skinnytrees312