Public Health Liberation™
“Public Health at every decision-making table at all levels of accountability to accelerate the pace of change in achieving health equity. Our humanity compels us.”
Coming Soon!
Publication describing public health roles and functions of resident leaders in low-income housing.
Member Resource for Environmental Advocacy
Public Health Liberation President Christopher Williams, PhD, has released a member resource for responding to air permit requests. The letter template helps members to use legal and regulatory standards to critically evaluate air permit review.
New Tool for Members to Combat Environmental Injustice
June 30, 2024
Public Health Liberation has released a new tool for its members to conceptualize and affect environmental injustices. It relies on legal analysis, as well as other cross-disciplinary insight. Members can access via their member account. Non-members can join PHL for immediate access.
Environmental Justice and Applied Public Health Liberation and Public Health Economic Analysis
This resource provides approaches and analysis from four individuals on a proposed city council bill on environmental justice. Community leaders of affected populations, Rhonda Hamilton and Patricia Bishop, provide oral and written testimony - highlighting ongoing injury in their neighborhood in Washington, DC. Also, an affected resident and tenant association president, PHL President Christopher Williams applies public health economic analysis in evaluating the bill, which he concludes has major deficiencies. A university environmental professor (not a PHL member), Dr. Wilson contrasts with the other speakers by using a more traditional, environmental approach.
As you listen and read, here are some questions to consider:
1) Why is applied liberation and involvement of affected residents important?
2) How do you see each speaker discuss the public health economy? Consider economic, regulatory, social, and political factors.
3) What are factors that might facilitate and challenge implementation?
3) What content is highly relevant for understanding the root causes of environmental racism in Washington, DC as opposed to a general theory? Consider specific contextual factors.
View entire video clips
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Patricia Bishop
She is the president of her resident council and a longstanding environmental activist, as part of the affected population in Washington, DC. Along with Rhonda Hamilton, she is currently featured in the Smithsonian Museum's exhibit, To Live and Breathe: Women and Environmental Justice in Washington, D.C. Mrs. Bishop testifies about her experience.
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Christopher Williams
He is a PhD Candidate in public health at the University of Maryland and Founding Director of Public Health Liberation. He also serves as the President of his tenant association. His testimony applies the lens of the public health economy.
View his testimony here.In applying public health economic analysis, he analyzed purported economic justifications for retaining polluters, elevated blood levels in children, community planning, shortcomings in legislative oversight, and the role of regulatory agencies, not consistent with statutory responsibility and planning. Read his prepared testimony.
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Rhonda Hamilton
She is an elected ANC commissioner and president of her resident council. She is a longstanding environmental justice leader and widely recognized for her work in Washington, DC. You can read her testimony here. She is a co-founder of the Near Buzzard Point Resilient Action Committee.
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Dr. Sacoby Wilson
We also include the testimony of Dr. Wilson, an environmental researcher (non-PHL member). We encourage you to compare the approaches of Christopher Williams and Dr. Wilson who are both public health researchers and advocates.
View testimony here.Sacoby Wilson is a Professor with the Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health and Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics in the University of Maryland, College Park School of Public Health where directs the Center for Community Engagement, Environmental Justice and Health (CEEJH).
AI for Public Meetings and Monitoring Public Health Economy.
The Public Health Liberation AI Work Group is testing the feasibility of using AI in public health discourse and data analysis in preparation for an upcoming manuscript. PHL has posited that ongoing monitoring of the Public Health Economy is key for our vision of public health. There are however many practical challenges. Limited resources to attend public hearing is a major limitation. Did you know that you can leverage AI to get a quick overview of a legislative hearing or public meeting? This brief article describes how you can use AI.
July 2023 Newsletter
Court Decisions Demonstrate Need for Public Health Economy
Public Health Liberation (PHL) is a membership nonprofit organization that seeks to accelerate health equity through understanding and affecting the Public Health Economy. There exist two major distinct but interdependent economies - the traditional employment and growth economy and the Public Health Economy. We innovated the concept of the Public Health Economy to broaden our view of the structural determinants of health through practice-based learning and transdisciplinary synthesis.1 In our inaugural manuscript, we characterized fundamental features of the Public Health Economy. Our members represent communities of practice that would most benefit from better performance in this economy. We call for a radical reconceptualization of public health theory-building, training, and research.
Budget Season: Using PHL Resource for Data-Driven Decisions
The budget process at the local, state, and federal levels is an opportunity to advocate for health equity and encourage order in the public health economy. When advocates apply the Public Health Liberation framework (below), they support greater reliance on science, sound theories, applied ethics, and practice-based policymaking. PHL encourages transdisciplinary performance evaluations of the public health economy, particularly at the local level. It is an ideal occasion for researchers to summarize the state of research on a given topic and to bridge the deep divide between research and policy while acknowledging data gaps. A major challenge in much of research concerns limited reproducibility and generalizability.
April 2023 Newsletter
Issue: Public Health Economy Workforce | Member Observations of the Public Health Economy | Updates on Public Health Liberation
Monitoring and Leading the Public Health Economy
The Public Health Economy in the context of Public Health Liberation (PHL) is a broad view of the determinants of health across specialties, governments, and communities. Public health (PH) economists examine and seek to affect system behaviors and performance. Although our approach tends to focus on the PH micro-economy (e.g., neighborhood- or city-level), PHL endeavors to further a new international field of study that involves cross-training and transdisciplinary synthesis that fill gaps in current specialized training models. It overcomes major limitations in current approaches that often limit the scope of practice to within-specialty strengthening. We are most interested in the underlying roots causes and interactions among systems that reproduce inequity. Our mission is to accelerate the pace of change in achieving health equity, especially by race and income, which necessitates a broader view of health inequity reproduction. Read More
March 2023 Newsletter
PHL Community Describes Ideal Public Health Economy
"Our Needs for a Neighborhood Culture of Health" - Public Health Liberation received its first grant in winter 2022-23. As a part of our work, we are working with a coalition of citywide partners to define and affect the micro-Public Health Economy in Washington DC. The coalition represents five large public housing and low-income communities. Our first meeting provided a preliminary list of ideas for how to advance a neighborhood culture of health. View List
Deadlines for important health-related events - open enrollment, farmer's market voucher registration | On-site/virtual events with health experts and community members, including persons with shared disease or condition, on health prevention, mental health, and disease management | Community dialogue within safe spaces to discuss health topics and challenges and to exchange shared knowledge and experiences to include mental health, diabetes prevention and management | Mental health support including and beyond clinical care to include community chats, engagement with professionals, informal discussion | Improved quality of in-home support, care, and responsibilities | Greater insight into the health needs and challenges with access and affordability within our communities | Central repository of health educational materials, resources, and resources | On-site/virtual support groups | De-stigmatizing health needs including mental health needs | Increased health knowledge and interpretation vital health data, including blood glucose testing, blood pressure, vitamin levels |
Deadlines for important health-related events - open enrollment, farmer's market voucher registration | On-site/virtual events with health experts and community members, including persons with shared disease or condition, on health prevention, mental health, and disease management | Community dialogue within safe spaces to discuss health topics and challenges and to exchange shared knowledge and experiences to include mental health, diabetes prevention and management | Mental health support including and beyond clinical care to include community chats, engagement with professionals, informal discussion | Improved quality of in-home support, care, and responsibilities | Greater insight into the health needs and challenges with access and affordability within our communities | Central repository of health educational materials, resources, and resources | On-site/virtual support groups | De-stigmatizing health needs including mental health needs | Increased health knowledge and interpretation vital health data, including blood glucose testing, blood pressure, vitamin levels |
Increased food education | Increased knowledge of body system and organ health | Community spaces for dialogue and education, especially during evening hours | Quality housing - decrease housing determinants of health including elimination of lead, mold, inadequate remediation and repair, elimination of pests, rodents | Data on lead threats within and around home (lead particulates/air quality, lead-based paint, lead-contaminated water, lead pipes) | Access to previous lead data conducted within community properties | Decreased ambient noise | Ensure redevelopment planning that eliminates related resident mental health stress and worsens physical health conditions | Fund preventative public health workforce within community-based work | Elimination of Southwest as perpetual construction site | Family housing that is safe, affordable, and modern | Educational system and workforce development system that promote community health and enhance positive social determinants of health | Decrease determinants that lead to incarceration | Research partners to conduct assessments of health threats to include air quality, lead, noise, community health burden | Legal assistance to challenge laws and regulations negatively impacting health | Affordable foods |
Increased food education | Increased knowledge of body system and organ health | Community spaces for dialogue and education, especially during evening hours | Quality housing - decrease housing determinants of health including elimination of lead, mold, inadequate remediation and repair, elimination of pests, rodents | Data on lead threats within and around home (lead particulates/air quality, lead-based paint, lead-contaminated water, lead pipes) | Access to previous lead data conducted within community properties | Decreased ambient noise | Ensure redevelopment planning that eliminates related resident mental health stress and worsens physical health conditions | Fund preventative public health workforce within community-based work | Elimination of Southwest as perpetual construction site | Family housing that is safe, affordable, and modern | Educational system and workforce development system that promote community health and enhance positive social determinants of health | Decrease determinants that lead to incarceration | Research partners to conduct assessments of health threats to include air quality, lead, noise, community health burden | Legal assistance to challenge laws and regulations negatively impacting health | Affordable foods |
Group exercise activities both indoor and outdoor - both onsite and virtual | Community togetherness to promote culture of health | Collective power-building | Reform of the DC Housing Authority to work for residents | Less individualism | Community events to promote culture of health and togetherness | Regular meetings with elected and public officials at local and federal levels | Insight into housing finance | Affordable mechanisms to communicate efficiently across community | Strengthen relations with health care providers and pharmacists for community education and engagement | Public safety that works and is trustworthy | Access to addresses and contact information of displaced community | Support for equitable self-development | Direct financial support to build neighborhood culture of health | Encourage internalized liberation in affected populations, including self-affirming storytelling | Monitor and respond to public health economy to drive health equity
Group exercise activities both indoor and outdoor - both onsite and virtual | Community togetherness to promote culture of health | Collective power-building | Reform of the DC Housing Authority to work for residents | Less individualism | Community events to promote culture of health and togetherness | Regular meetings with elected and public officials at local and federal levels | Insight into housing finance | Affordable mechanisms to communicate efficiently across community | Strengthen relations with health care providers and pharmacists for community education and engagement | Public safety that works and is trustworthy | Access to addresses and contact information of displaced community | Support for equitable self-development | Direct financial support to build neighborhood culture of health | Encourage internalized liberation in affected populations, including self-affirming storytelling | Monitor and respond to public health economy to drive health equity
We're Excited about 2023
Our mission and vision at Public Health Liberation is simple - accelerate health equity, especially by income and race. We have begun building the framework of a new public health transdiscipline through the lens of the Public Health Economy. Currently, there is no discipline that synthesizes information across economic, political, regulatory, legal, and social determinants of health to monitor and affect the Public Health Economy, which is the source of health inequity reproduction.
View New Year’s Issue
Our work is reflected in everyday practice in which we are working with communities, supporting capacity-building and knowledge-sharing, and responding to and anticipating negative changes in the Public Health Economy in real-time. Among our inclusive membership varying in income, geography, educational background, and race/ethnicity, we are on-the-ground in health equity challenge. We are uniquely positioned to speak to health disparities and their cause. You will find in this issue our accomplishments for Public Health Liberation in 2022 and a list of opportunities that we are seeking to explore in 2023. Consider joining or donating to our efforts. Public Health Liberation is a 501(c)3 organization. We do not engage in activity that would jeopardize this status.
View PHL Flashcards for some key concepts of PHL theory and public health practice
December 2022 Newsletter
Public Health Liberation has called for the study of the Public Health Economy in its inaugural manuscript published (click link in header) in September 2022. Our white paper was packed with big ideas to conceptualize and affect the Public Health Economy, which we believe is the best unit of analysis and intervention to accelerate health equity. We sought to explain why public efforts on achieving health equity is "stuck" and how practitioners can drive change.
This newsletter issue is intended to walk our readers through this new general theory of public health. We address four areas - Public Health Economy, public health realism, Public Health Liberation, and liberation. We are motivated by the yawning chasms in health equity in the United States and within our communities of practice. The devastation of the Covid-19 pandemic and the vocal calls for social reform with the Black Lives Matter movement have also made an indelible impact. Our goal is to construct a field of study that can explain our communities' experiences with health injustices and to identify pathways beyond traditional public health.
*We’re a small non-profit. Our newsletters aren’t perfect. We see mistakes and try to correct before they are published. We don’t catch everything. Thanks for your patience.”
November 2022 Newsletter
Public Health Liberation made history this November by hosting its Annual Meeting on-site at a public housing community. To our knowledge, this is a first for a national public health non-profit organization. "Public Health Liberation is seeking radical transformation of the public health economy to accelerate health equity by income and race. This means that we need to always stay close to affected populations, even in how we organize our conferences," said Founding Director Christopher Williams. The hybrid meeting was held from 10:00am - 2:00pm ET on Saturday, November 5.
Public Health Liberation Board Statement
"We are immensely grateful to Diversity City Fund for their support of our mission. This grant will support the DC Chapter of PHL in lasting ways for the Greenleaf and Lincoln Road public housing communities.”
New! Public Health Liberation Receives Major Grant from Diversity City Fund
Transforming the Public Health Economy to Accelerate Health Equity - An Emerging Transdiscipline
Contents: New Transformative Public Health Theory | Manuscript Guide and Index | Dedication to Mothers | Preview of Next Peer-Reviewed Manuscript | Author Highlight | Join PHL Membership | Webinar and Training
We are excited to announce the publication of our eponymous theory, Public Health Liberation – An Emerging Transdiscipline to Elucidate and Transform the Public Health Economy, aimed at transforming public health to accelerate health equity. The chronic state of health disparities, especially by income and race, warrants a seismic shift in public health support and intervention. This sweeping 21-page framework may represent the most consequential pivot in public health discourse in the last 20 years. Based on our innovative concept of the Public Health Economy, Public Health Liberation™ posits a radical reconceptualization of public health using a unified framework wherein our primary aim of eliminating health disparities is supported through an alignment of our worldviews that draw from a wide-ranging body of literature, including African American philosophical traditions. Envisioned as a single analytic lens and basis for intervention, the Public Health Economy™ theory explains opposing tensions and competing health priorities at any level of analysis and proposes a framework for attenuating the reproduction of health inequity.
Public Health Liberation promotes a unique work that is internally consistent across all aspects of public health. Values, theory, practice, research, and training are interrelated and co-dependent. We propose theories of cause-and-effect to elucidate internal contradictions within the public health economy, while leveraging liberation for research and practice within real-world constraints. Ours is an authentic account of health inequity reproduction because we are socially embedded within communities, particularly low-income and communities of color, that bear the brunt of yawning chasms in health justice.
To our understanding, PHL is the first general theory of public health defined by cross-disciplinary and sociocultural synthesis by a majority of Black authors. Our view of the public health economy posits a universal theory with high explanatory power. Rather than assume hope and optimism in the general effectiveness of the public health economy to address health inequity, the conceptualization and critique of this economy draw its strength from leveling with reality, wherein competition for resources and economic gain is a primary feature. Vast health inequity, particularly by income and race, warrants a wholesale reevaluation and increase in the distribution of resources, including within the public health research industrial complex. Our arguments rest on principled reasoning and our experiential knowledge. Our communities of practice, particularly low-income and populations with legacies of historical trauma, are overwhelmed by acute structural barriers to health. Our communities and those with shared health burdens bear the brunt of health inequity.
Another strength is that it bridges popular and academic discourse in a compelling narrative that cannot be overlooked given the authors' breadth of community insight and specialized training. PHL makes a significant contribution to the literature on this account. The forceful, justice-oriented argumentation reflects theoretical validity since we speak from our experiences as women, racial minorities, low-income people, health care providers, and non-profit leaders. We also believe that this is the first academic public health theory to involve a highly diverse coalition of public housing community leaders, researchers, advocates, and clinicians with a collective fund of acknowledge spanning environmental regulation, academic research, housing policy, non-profit leadership, economics, clinical medicine, communication theory, policy development, visual arts, and social science. 80% of the authors are women. 72% are Black women. One author is an active politician. Two are clinicians. Three hold academic appointments. Three are public housing resident council leaders. Five founded a non-profit. Two live outside of the US - Uganda and Toronto, Canada. We also include sexual minorities. Several authors have overlapping communities of practice in Washington, DC while others represent communities from Uganda, Los Angeles, CA, Toronto, Canada, and Richmond, Virginia.
PHL is working on developing a 2-3 page summary of our manuscript in highly accessible language, in conjunction with community focus groups. We invite you to follow us on Twitter and Instagram. PHL is grateful to Advances in Clinical Medical Research and Healthcare Delivery © 2021 for their peer-review and willingness to publish the full length of our manuscript.
New! Novel and Existing Terms
Illiberation
Community of practice
Structural violence and vulnerability
Moral injury
Morality Principle
Madisonian critique
Liberation safe space
Douglassian struggle
Citizen research
African American liberation philosophy
Public health economy
Public health realism
Third Reconstruction
Health inequity reproduction
Vertical integration
Horizontal integration
Gaze of the Enslaved
Assumption of non-neutrality
Structural functionalism
Personhood restoration
Study Guide: Questions That PHL Theory Answers - Readers should be able to answer the following questions after reading the manuscript. Read more
How are affected populations excluded from public health discourse and agenda-setting?
What are examples of structural violence and racism?
Why do the lead-contaminated water crises in Flint, Michigan and Washington, DC illustrate the need for public health à la PHL?
What is the public health economy important to study?
What liberation in the sense of public health? Why is it so important to PHL theoretical assumptions?
Why does health inequity persist?
What is the difference between anti-racism and liberation?
How is health inequity reproduced through human decision-making?
What is horizontal and vertical integration? How is it envisioned to accelerate health equity?
How does political theory elucidate challenges in the public health economy to explain persistent health disparities?
What is problematic about equity terms such as structural vulnerability and violence?
Manuscript Section Guide and Index
Public Health Liberation is a rich and complex approach to understanding and affecting drivers of health inequity. A section guide and index are intended to guide the readers and serve as a referential document for future reading. Given the denseness of our discussion and the 20-30 minutes that are required for a thorough read, we suspect that readers will repeatedly return to master the constructs and theories. This guide is available for download on our website.
In Memoriam
Dedication to Mothers: We dedicate our manuscript to several authors' mothers whom we lost too soon. Two co-authors lost their mothers this year. Another experienced her mother's lost last year. At least three other authors grieve a similar loss. These mothers' legacies in community leadership and matriarchal family role instilled values of collective striving and neighborhood care-taking. PHL implores greater attention to the public health economy because healthy inequity is not an abstract construct. It is deeply felt in our lived experiences.
PREVIEW OF NEXT PHL ARTICLE
As with our inaugural manuscript, our subsequent white paper will undergo peer-review. We are preparing a follow-up discussion on PHL research, practice, and training. The following themes will be explored. The manuscript is expected in fall 2022 or winter 2023. In part, it will critically assess accepted approaches and practices in research on race and ethnicity that we believe to be methodologically and ethically problematic. READ MORE
Systemic Racism in Society Has Major Implications for Research - Clear evidence of widespread racism in the public health economy suggests an "exposure" which most major research studies should account for, as it likely confounds study findings that cannot be controlled for simply by controlling for race in data analysis. Race is an ill-defined construct apt to measurement error. In fact, any belief in the common occurrence of racism translates as a nesting effect in statistical theory and makes many common inferential statistical tests inappropriate.
Training - The noted lack of diversity in the public health workforce is only part of the challenge facing public health training. Outdated curricula, flourishing campus racism, faculty misconduct, lax accreditation oversight, student mistreatment, and lack of institutional accountability are among contemporary issues in public health programs. An African American author, currently in a PhD public health program (see below), will recount troubling encounters with institutional and faculty racism that negatively impacted his mental health and how he found his identity as a researcher and public health educator through liberation research and self-training. If his experience is any indication, then the state of public health training needs major reform (e.g., curricular overhaul, faculty re-training, community interaction, and new theory-building) to be inclusive of racial minorities.
Perspective: African American Student Traumatized in Public Health Training Program
AUTHOR HIGHLIGHT
Rhonda Hamilton, Washington, DC Seen here with a Washington Post reporter covering environmental racism in her community, Rhonda Hamilton is a co-author and an elected official with a lifetime commitment to her community in Southwest, Washington, DC. The breadth of her experience and leadership in environmental justice, fair and equal housing, and community health served as a major source of the theoretical underpinnings for PHL. Rhonda is the recipient of the 2021 Southwest Voice Lifetime Achievement Award and 2022 Honoree of Women Environmentalist, Smithsonian Museum. Read Rhonda's Washington Post editorial, "D.C. development is leaving historic black communities in the dust" (click on image).
Patricia Bishop, Washington, DC Seen here meeting with legal support to advocate for better public housing conditions, Patricia Bishop (bottom right) is a co-author and long-time community leader in Washington, DC, advocating for housing, environmental, and racial justice. She serves on the DC Citywide Resident Advisory Board for the DC Housing Authority and as the President of Greenleaf Midrise Apartments. Her health has been negatively impacted by the major structural violence and racism occurring in her community. Patricia Bishop is the 2021 recipient of the Community Leadership Award.
After a career in corporate finance, Ms. Dena Walker decided to share her knowledge, skills, and abilities within underserved communities. This decision led her back to the community that she knew so well as a child. For some higher reason, she was led back to the Greenleaf Gardens community to fulfill the mission her mother subliminally transferred to her. Her beloved mother displayed so many random acts of kindness to strangers when she was a child that the first time that she did it, she become confused and subtly jealous of the child she purchased a meal for in the Hot Shoppe’s restaurant. (Click on image to read ful bio)
Pamela P.S. Perkins, Founder and Senior Curriculum Developer, Human Communication Institute (HCI). PHL Board Consultant. HCI specializes in all forms of Human Communication practices with special emphasis on Behavioral Communication for personal, civic and professional growth in support of the Public Health Economy. (Click on image)
Christopher Williams, PHL Founder Christopher Williams (left standing) is the founder of Public Health Liberation and a fourth-year public health doctoral student. He draws upon his strong research skills, community relations, advocacy, and expertise beyond traditional public to affect structural change in Washington, DC - a site of deep and chronic racial inequity. (Photo: Tyler Lloyd, SW Rally for Racial Justice in June 2020) Read his Washington Post editorial, "D.C.’s build-build-build mind-set results in more gentrification" (click on image)
Join the Public Health Liberation Movement. You will join a membership body committed to health equity and innovation in public health theory and practice. All backgrounds and fields are welcome. (Click on image to join)
Webinar and Training
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NEWSLETTERS AND RESOURCES
Latest in The HUB
Public Health Liberation and Federalist No. 10 | Poor People's Campaign & PHL | PHL on the The 20th Anniversary of Institute of Medicine's "Unequal Treatment" | Is Public Health Ready for Liberation Philosophy and Praxis? We Don't Think So.
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Next Manuscript: PHL Training, Research, and Praxis
As with our inaugural manuscript, our subsequent white paper will undergo peer-review. We are preparing a follow-up discussion on PHL research, practice, and training. The following themes will be explored. The manuscript is expected in fall 2022 or winter 2023. In part, it will critically assess accepted approaches and practices in research on race and ethnicity that we believe to be methodologically and ethically problematic.
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Structural Violence Against Black Women: Moving Toward Praxis
The Black women that make up resident councils are deprived of meaningful influence to safeguard their residents’ legal rights and interests.
Our Most Recent Issue: Issue: Public Health Liberation Needed More Than Ever Before | Relevant Public Health Principles | Community Garden Analogy | The Dobbs Decision | Our Previous Issue | Mrs. Bishop on Finding Liberation | New in PHL | Become a Member
Poor People's Campaign & Public Health Liberation
June 2022 Issue: Poor People's Campaign | Video: Rev. Dr. William Barber | Applying PHL Analysis to Poor People's Campaign | Dr. Liz Theoharis | Rev. Alvin O'Neal Jackson | PHL Board Member's Liberation in Action | What's New in PHL | Donate | Become a Member
Call for Liberation Safe Space Pilot Members
Public Health Liberation has released a guide for creating a liberation safe space for public health equity discourse. It provides a conceptual model for liberation spaces (below). PHL members will take part in opening liberation spaces for diverse participants in their communities of practices during the summer and will share their experiences in a national webinar in July or August. PHL will work with each host to design a space that fits the community’s needs and existing resources.
Calling All HUD-Assisted Community Leaders
Public Health Liberation cordially invites you as a member. We are a US non-profit that is dedicated to accelerating health equity and bringing public housing and HUD-assisted residents into public health conversations. We are proud to say that our Board is made up of nearly one-third housing-assisted community leaders. Membership is free for low-income residents and offers an opportunity for networking, building tools, and making policy.
We hope that you consider this opportunity. We're working on some amazing projects and value your perspectives and insight. Check out our recent Health Equity and Praxis Guide and Creating a Liberation Safe Space. We look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Christopher Williams
Director, Public Health Liberation
New! — Free Download
Creating a Liberation Safe Space
Public Health Liberation has released a guide for creating a liberation safe space for public health equity discourse. It provides a conceptual model for liberation spaces (below). PHL members will take part in opening liberation spaces for diverse participants in their communities of practices during the summer and will share their experiences in a national webinar in July or August. PHL will work with each host to design a space that fits the community’s needs and existing resources.
If you are interested in being a “Space Maker,” email us at info@publichealthliberation.com
New! — Free Download
Public Health Liberation Terms for Health Equity and Liberation
50 novel and existing terms to jumpstart conversations and practices to accelerate health equity
PHL as philosopy, praxis, research methodology, theory, and training | public health realism | illiberation | Public health double consciousness | Racial health inequity reproduction | Public health economy | Gaze of the Enslaved | Performative public health | Poverty pimping | Weed and seed | Structural racial violence | Revisionist public health history | Ghettoization | Calling foul | Language Oppression | Evolutionary public health | Public health systems engineer | Deficit Model of Health Equity | Tabula rasa | Social identity | Structural violence/vulnerability | Concept of hegemony | Organic intellectualism | Public health feminism | Political intersectionality | Biting Mistrust | Non-neutrality commitment | Embodiment
Welcome from Executive Director
I write to you from our nation's capital and the national headquarters for the newly formed Public Health Liberation non-profit. We thank our members and supporters for making this possible. We endeavor to establish a public health movement characterized by ongoing community engagement and adaptability to local health challenges by engaging at all levels of accountability. To affect the social determinants of health, public health must have a seat at every table of decision-making impacting community health both in the short- and long-term. Our public health model will be fully described in a forthcoming manuscript in 2022 following Board and community engagement and a literature review. As the Covid-19 pandemic has shown, public health is well-positioned to further our social contract given public trust in and appreciation for our field. Public Health Liberation builds on the shoulders of giants and the significant work in community health theory and practice. As sociopolitical conditions and systems
influencing the social determinants of health have evolved and become more sophisticated and esoteric, public health must change with it. While preserving traditional public health approaches, Public Health Liberation innovates in two ways — non-linearity and adaptive cross-disciplinary training.
Single-issue research questions or policy approaches are beneficial and vital for conducting quality research. While supporting traditional science, Public Health Liberation seeks to advance a new model that requires not only forming close social bonds with our community friends and partners, but also adopting an integrated, broad range of new skills - public health research, legal and legislative writing, community organizing, technology, policy analysis, grant writing, coalition building, public testimony, history, advocacy, systems thinking, and community leadership training. Consider joining as a member today! Contact us with questions at info@publichealthliberation.com.
- Christopher Williams, Executive Director
“Any meeting where a decision is made that impacts community health, Public Health must be there”.
APPLIED PUBLIC HEALTH LIBERATION
Applied Public Health Liberation - Environmental Racism Near Public Housing Community
“Without sustained disequilibrium in the proximal and distal systems that perpetuate social and health inequity, we cannot realistically anticipate a better future beyond our present reality.”
- Christopher Williams, PHL Founder
For decades residents in public housing experienced environmental racism. Despite political engagement and protests, their concerns fell on deaf ears. They were left to fight at the margins, like when they forced one polluter to put in better mitigation and self-reporting. They then saw another opportunity when one of the polluters sought an air pollution renewal. They took pictures of all the industrial sites and convinced the environmental agency to implement more stringent regulations because they showed how the polluter was not mitigating harm relative to other polluters. In our research, they also found out that the polluter had not had a business license for more than 10 years. The city assessed a considerable fine. Using applied liberation, they applied for grant money to install their own air monitors because the public could not gain access to polluters’ monitors. The lax regulation was self-reporting. A manuscript on their air quality results was published this summer (link on left). The overwhelming number of people who participated had no background of training in environmental health or public health, but benefited from forming a community and academic partnership.
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