Community Possibilities
Community Possibilities
Transforming Health Equity: A Conversation with Dr. Brandon Wilson of Community Catalyst
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What if health was a guaranteed right, accessible to everyone regardless of race or background? Join us for an enlightening conversation with Dr. Brandon Wilson from Community Catalyst as we unpack the concept of health equity. Dr. Wilson's journey from Louisiana's Cancer Alley to being a leading advocate for equitable vaccine access is nothing short of inspiring. His personal experiences, including his HIV diagnosis at 17, have fueled his unwavering commitment to public health. Together, we imagine a healthcare system where equity and justice are not mere ideals, but everyday realities.
Dr. Wilson shares why authentic community engagement requires humility and trust and how traditional power structures must evolve to recognize the spaces where real community discussions happen. Dr. Wilson highlights the power of lived experiences and the necessity of multidirectional learning in fostering true community partnerships. His insights are a roadmap for anyone looking to bridge the healthcare gap for marginalized communities.
We also tackle pressing issues such as the decline in public trust within the healthcare system and the essential role of caregivers, especially those in home and community-based services (HCBS). From innovative delivery models to the impact of the pandemic on public health initiatives, this episode outlines strategies for promoting equity and access. We discuss how states can build on existing foundations to improve HCBS and explore how community organizations can be better resourced to sustain their vital work.
Dr. Brandon Wilson
Dr. Brandon G. Wilson, DrPH, MHA, is a transformative leader in health innovation, public health, and equity. Dr. Wilson serves as the Co-Interim President & CEO, alongside Dana Clarke. Dr. Wilson oversees the organization’s health system innovation and community-first public health work and leads the Center for Community Engagement in Health Innovation. This center conducts community-based research to understand how inequities in the U.S. health system drive poor health outcomes for historically excluded communities and drives practice and policy change strategies based on its findings. As a recognized public health advisor, he has made significant contributions to health equity and innovation.
He received a master’s degree in health systems management at George Mason University, and a Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) at Morgan State University. He holds a faculty appointment at the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health.
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Hi everybody, welcome back to Community Possibilities. Today, my guest is Dr Brandon Wilson of Community Catalyst. Community Catalyst asks us to imagine a society where health is a right for all. Can you imagine what that would look like for all? Can you imagine what that would look like? Dr Wilson is a transformative leader in health innovation, public health and equity. He is currently the co-interim president and CEO, alongside Dana Clark of Community Catalyst. He oversees the overall direction of Community Catalyst's work to build the power of people to create such a health system, one that is rooted in race equity and health justice. He is also the Senior Director Health Innovation, public Health and Equity at Community Catalyst, where he oversees the organization's health system innovation and community-first public health work.
Speaker 2That's what we're going to be talking about today in our episode how do we put communities first in this hard work? Thank you again for joining me. Now let's dive into the show. Oh yeah, before I let you go, don't forget to like and subscribe to Community Possibilities, and if you would just take that extra minute to leave a review, that would be so helpful. Now, dr Wilson. Today I have Dr Brandon Wilson from Community Catalyst. Hey, brandon.
Speaker 3Hey Anne, how are you?
Speaker 2I'm doing well and I guess I should ask you is it okay to call you Brandon, Please do?
Speaker 3I just guess I should ask you is it okay to call you Brandon? Please do Thank you.
Speaker 2I don't know about you, but when I'm out in communities I like to go by Ann. So sometimes, like last week I was somewhere, or the week before I was somewhere and they said we're going to introduce you as Dr Price and then we'll switch to Ann because we know you prefer. But I also know that there are some of us who work really hard and have to work harder for respect. So totally all props to you, doctor of public health, right?
Speaker 3So yeah, yes, yes, thank you. I mean, you're right, certainly, and I actually recall a moment before when there's a really renowned Black OBGYN who works in maternal equity spaces, who went to stellar schools, have done tons of great work, who still today have to fight to be referred to with their proper credentials. Um, so I get it, um, but thank you.
Speaker 2But brandon is totally fine yeah, and ann is totally fine with me. So, um, so, usually I start off by uh telling a story about how, uh, you know, I've met my guests. We've actually never met. We had a conversation. I want to say it was like a month ago, maybe six weeks ago, I can't even remember and I think if I remember correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I had seen something I follow. I follow Community Catalyst on LinkedIn, so I think I'd seen something you posted and, just like you know, cold emailed you like, hey, I wanted to get somebody from Community Catalyst and I think your communication director said, oh, you should get Dr Wilson on your podcast.
Speaker 3Yeah, that sounds about right. I'm quite active on LinkedIn as well as Twitter, so it could have been something I posted on LinkedIn as well as Twitter, so it could have been something I posted. But I know our comms team is wonderful in posting all of our resources on social media as well, so glad that we're in touch. It was a great conversation.
Speaker 2Yeah, absolutely, and I love to follow folks who are doing real work in communities, and that's what this podcast is all about. I am a community psychologist and evaluator. I probably told you that when we first met. But this podcast is not for evaluators. Sorry, you folks out there, I love you, but it really is for those community leaders, which is what attracted me to some of the content that you were putting out. And I am not on Twitter, now known as X, anymore, but we can talk about that later. But yeah, we'll connect on LinkedIn for sure. But before we dive into Community Catalyst, I would just love to hear a little bit about your story, your origin story. How did you come to be Brandon?
Speaker 3Well, thank you Great, great, great question. I think there's a probably a convergence of things. I'm from a small rural area in Louisiana, in between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, known as Cancer Alley, and it's unfortunately never a question of yes, but when a cancer diagnosis is coming to your household or to your neighborhood, particularly because of exposure to biochemical and petrochemical quarter. So so many people in my family, my loved ones, my neighborhoods have all been diagnosed with some form of cancer. And then it was at age 17 that I was diagnosed with HIV as a young, queer, same gender loving man who didn't have access probably to health care, education and preventative care in such a rural and conservative environment. And it wasn't until years later. I was like maybe six or seven years later, who's now a partner of Community Catalyst, working at that CBO in Dallas County, who had to express intent of bringing into the healthcare continuum Black and African-American Sane and 11 and Queer individuals into the healthcare continuum. So it was only because of that trusted part in relationship that I can see that I am here, because too many individuals and communities, as you know, have rightful mistrust and distrust from many of our established healthcare systems and public health infrastructure. So it really, really matters when you have those trusted messengers in community who can help bridge that divide to get people the care and treatment that they so need and deserve.
Speaker 3I'd also not going to go through bio, but part of my background before doing this work felt it after doing some of this was I was doing clinical research in NIH, particularly HIV, sars, ebola, influenza vaccine research, and I'm a huge advocate of vaccine access and equitable vaccine access. We know that vaccines is one of the number one contributors to increased population health outcomes, such as life expectancy, and when you're that 0.001% person who may have had an adverse event, that some of that may feel quite, quite, quite distal. And that was my mother, and she received a vaccine-related injury and she's now bedbound and she's duly eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare, depend on home and community services to stay in age in her home and community, and so sometimes it's providing space for the complexity and dynamic nature of life where both things can be true. That we advance public and population health and equity calls us to also look at the individual and those who may have received disproportionate harm even by some of our best promises and our most altruistic purposes in healthcare delivery.
Speaker 2Wow, there's about a million places I want to go right now. So so many places, right? And that's why I think this question is so important and why I love it when people tell their story, because I really do think that we're all called to this work for a reason.
Speaker 2We don't always, we're not always in touch, with that reason, you know Well, I was just interested in the subject. It's usually not that, yeah, and I'm kind of like feeling for young little Brandon, because you were probably like one of my. You're probably the age of my youngest son and I can't even imagine you going without healthcare for six or seven years when you're faced with that kind of diagnosis where it's so important to get healthcare right, because the toll that takes on your body I can't even imagine. And then I'm thinking about when you talked about Cancer Alley. Have you ever read the book Maybe?
Speaker 2I asked you this when I first met you Strangers in their Own Land, I think it's called, and I'm blanking on the author. I'll try to remember to look it up and put it in the show notes, but it's about a woman who embedded herself in the New Orleans, louisiana area to try to understand why people and this is not a political show but vote against their best interest. And she talked about the rates of cancer death in Louisiana and all public health outcomes. Really, anyway, so that's where my mind is going. I'll pause because there's a couple other places that I want to go.
Speaker 3No, no. Well, thank you. If I can pick up on maybe two points you just made One, I'm certainly blessed I've been given resources and community and networks, resources and community and networks and I have access in quality and experiences that that many people do not, I don't know. At one point I used to feel, oh gosh, I have to do this work. And someone an old pastor mentor corrected me once he said, young man, you don't have to do this work, you get to do this work. And it completely shifted my perspective and how there's opportunity and we can actually bring joy to the struggle and I would. When you mentioned the book, somebody else actually brought that book recommendation to me just last week.
Speaker 3So I need to go at the association between the number of cities and towns who had higher prevalences of meshing and by way of that she looked at dissociation between that and their engagement with the healthcare system and by way of that she looked at the association of associated population health outcomes, which she measured as our use of proxy measurement of life expectancy. As you can imagine, they had lesser levels of engagement and lesser levels of life expectancy. Now one might argue well, because of lynching. That wasn't a healthcare system of engagement and lesser levels of life expectancy. Now one might argue well, because of lynching. That wasn't a healthcare system.
Speaker 3But I remember being in a panel discussion maybe two years ago and I asked the panelists. I said I think we understand that the school to prison pipeline helped me understand the connection between the criminal justice system and the healthcare system. Their response changed me. It said it's one system. Those of us who work in this world, we love frameworks and we see all these different systems, but those of us who experience it, particularly those who've been harmed by it, it's all one system with a syndemic and synergistic impact. I think the opportunity of that is if all these systems can collide together to create harm. What if we were working together to where we all came together to actually produce positives on experiences and outcomes for people?
Speaker 2Oh my gosh and I'm not just saying this I literally just got goosebumps, as somebody who spends a lot of time talking about and thinking about systems and contexts, when you said, like it, it's, it is, it's Arlie Russell, hochschild, hochschild, and I can't remember exactly when it came out. I don't even want to venture a guess, but anyway, yeah, strangers in the Round Land, you'll resonate with that book for sure.
Speaker 3Absolutely. We'll have a follow-up conversation about it. It's going to be on my list.
Speaker 2Yeah and then. Well, this is totally random because I think this is a great lead-in to the work that you're now doing with Community Catalyst. But have you ever heard of a researcher called Dr John Peterson? Do you know John Peterson's work?
Speaker 3I have not.
Partnering With Communities for Health Equity
Speaker 2He was a professor at Georgia State. He came in when I was almost done with my coursework and he taught, designing interventions for his work with black male queer men who were having sex with men, obviously and dealing with HIV and AIDS. So yeah, anyway. So yeah, dear dear John, yeah, anyway, let's move on and talk about this idea of wow, we're all one system. Crud, I think I need to go back to school. So let's talk about Community Catalyst and the work that you all do. Why don't we start there? I know I was really resonating with the vision that you all have, which is, you know and I always think about the old Dilbert commercial the difference between a mission statement and a vision statement. But anyway, the vision of Community Catalyst is we won't stop until everyone has what they need to be healthy and our health system is shaped by and accountable to all people. That's a big, big vision. So I'll just dump that in your lap.
Speaker 3It is. It is and, quite frankly, like I was, strategic plan behind a vision of five-year strategic plan. But I think when we created we knew I mean we created it we, we very well knew this is probably like a 10 20 year um strategic plan. Um, because a part of that too is making sure that all of this work is centered on health, justice and on race equity and the structures that exist that cause inequities and disparities. We know that wasn't pretty in five years, so we won't be able to eliminate some of this in five years. But I think to your broader question and point. But I think to your broader question and point, I think there's probably quite broad recognition and understanding and experiences by American people across the board that the way the health care system is designed today is not particularly working very well for most of us. But some of us are disproportionately, I would say, affected and impacted by the status quo of the health care system and, as I've mentioned earlier, it is one system that can create almost a synergistic form, almost a way that can act as a pinnacle towards people.
Speaker 3I remember when I did another discussion with someone and it was a white lady who reflected on how, after a birthing experience that she and her husband had to make a very quick decision to have surgery for their newborn, and she didn't understand much. She didn't know what she was finding. She began to emote. He did as well the process. They were met with comfort and social workers, but she recognized that right next door to them was a minority family. Same thing happened with them. That husband began to emote and police were called on him. And so the ability to even emote and to use voice comes with a sense of privilege. I think, as the healthcare system, I think in general, we've done, we've made some improvements, I would say, in trying to make sure that we're providing space for people in communities to show up at the table and to have voice. A lot more we can do and a lot more areas we can grow in. I would say a 2.0 version of that is now that we have a paradigm shift.
Speaker 3It's time for us to reconsider the table itself. The table has never belonged to us. The table is really not in our boardrooms. The table is not really in halls of Congress. The tables are not really in corporate America. The tables really do belong to the community. It really is the kitchen. I mean, I know this is said a lot every four years in election season, but the table really is in kitchens. The table really is at cookouts and picnics and people's backyards where people and family and communities are coming together and happen to make really difficult decisions around health care which are almost opaque and difficult for people to even understand. But I think when we build trust with community and community leaders, then we get and show up with a posture of humility. I think then we get invites to their tables versus us inviting people to come into corporate tables.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. And you know I got to tell you I so resonate with that story that you shared about the woman's experience in the hospital because recently my team has been out in communities talking to folks who had experienced disaster and we were in a small town in mississippi and that group was um black women who were telling their story about the lack of help they did not get, whereas the folks across town who didn't look like them got help. And I just remember being struck by the way they told their story. Like there was a young woman who talked about using losing her mother, her father and her brother and it had only been a year, not a tear. Not a tear, the the just strong, right but not emotional. And then doing a similar group with a similar group of folks who were older white women in Florida and how emotional they were right, and just recognizing the difference in the way people have been socialized and taught and trained from their experience to even share something as basic as grief and trauma.
Speaker 3Really good point. Yeah, I'm reminded of one of our staff who did an interview recently and one of the best things ever that she said is that often when talking about engagement and community engagement from probably well-meaning people in healthcare systems that are trying to engage with such and such individual or community, but there's non-engagement there and I'm paraphrasing, but the reality is that is a form of communication. They are telling you something. Many communities have been taught to not engage as a way of resilience and survival because engagement sometimes can be met with weaponization against you. So the question is, what is that saying to us? Is what is that saying to us? So that, quote-unquote, non-engagement is a starting point. That's not an end point.
Speaker 2Yeah, and just being present for folks in communities, however they present themselves. So what is that with those nuggets of kind of knowledge and experience and learning? How does community catalyst, you know, work with communities, not like in communities, as you said, not bringing them? You know, hey, come on over, we're having this. You know we're doing this public health intervention, y'all come Right. So what does that practically look like for you all?
Speaker 3Yeah, we work with over. I think one of the greatest strengths of Community Catalyst is that we do not work in silos and that we work with community and that we work with community and community members. We center the experiences of people with lived experience and how we approach practice and policy changes. We also believe in multidirectional learning, like, yes, we provide technical assistance to many of our partners, but we're also learning from them and we're also convening spaces where they're learning from each other and we're taking all these learnings and we're sharing it at local levels, laddering up to state levels and laddering up to federal, so that we're coordinated in the policy change that we're seeking. So the way that this plays out in our work, let's say, is our strategies towards not stopping until everyone in every community has what they need to be healthy is probably six key areas, I could say, and we can probably do a deeper dive into one or two of those. Do a deeper dive into one or two of those.
Speaker 3I wanted to think about the way our healthcare system is set up. It's really now rewarding profit and commercialization over people. There's actually survey results that just came out that show that people's trust in physicians in hospitals have decreased, I want to say, by 30% in about a four-year period, and it was simply because of our driving factor of that mistrust was because of profit motives and commercialization of the system and commercialization of the system. So I think it's really time for us to really pursue agendas that make sure that profit is not occurring at the expense of people. Relatedly is health and economic justice. We have way too many people who are being burdened with medical debt simply because they made a decision to do what we all do, which is to seek health care when we absolutely need it, and it's not a luxury, it's not a commodity. It's not a commodity and people should not be economically disadvantaged in a way that could even put them into a cycle of economic and health burdens simply because they pursued health care.
Speaker 3We need a whole lot more coverage in care. We can do more to expand Medicaid access, coverage and care. We can do more to expand Medicaid access. We need more coverage for oral health and for vision and audio and hearing services. Still, we know we have states who still have not expanded Medicaid and we know when we expand Medicaid that we see health outcomes go up. Mr Reason believes that medical debt is reduced and it's actually pretty good in pulling people out of poverty.
Speaker 3We also know that all this can only be done if we're really organizing people and harnessing the power that people have in communities. We have to innovate and transform our health care system, the way that we deliver care, the way that people experience care care the way that people experience care and we believe that we have. I actually think it's a really good opportunity that we have given a recent CBO score around CMS Innovation Center. I think we have opportunity now to even really reconsider how we're designing delivery models that could produce better quality at lower cost and affordability as well, but designing those with people in the community, like I was saying nothing for us without us. But I think in many industries we know what user-centered design is and that when you bring communities into the beginning of the process and not just the end, you actually get better results.
Speaker 3And last I would say is community first, public health. Take a major lesson from pandemic, even probably before, was that we really do need a public health infrastructure that not just prioritizes systems and governments but, as I was saying earlier, but those true trusted partners in the community, to see them as true public health agents. So that's how our work in a nutshell and how we're trying to ensure that health systems are shaped by and accountable to people, and that people have what they need to be healthy.
Speaker 2So it sounds like you're doing a lot of advocacy work, not just at the organizational level, but it sounds like also bringing that voice of the community to that advocacy work. Would that be accurate?
Speaker 3That is absolutely accurate.
Speaker 2Okay.
Speaker 3Yeah, so we are a national health advocacy organization, so advocacy is core in terms of the work that we do.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I love the idea of kind of revisioning the whole healthcare system. Actually, john Silver is a nurse and was just on the podcast talking about that very thing. It's like, you know, we can get creative here. We can think about how we deliver healthcare very differently than what is a very, you know, commercial, industrialized, you know experience for sure, absolutely.
Speaker 3I mean and at this point we have to right we're um approaching over 20% of our GDP appropriated to healthcare costs and getting the best outcomes for that. Now, that's not to say that we don't need investments in healthcare. This is certainly true, but it's probably unhealthy for any thriving economy. It's probably unhealthy for any thriving economy to have so much of its GDP or resources appropriated to one particular sector in the economy.
Speaker 2Right, and who bears that burden? I mean, I am far from like an expert in this. Do not even claim to understand. This is very complicated stuff. But I'm sorry, a cotton ball is a cotton ball and it shouldn't cost any different whether or not you have insurance or not.
Speaker 3Absolutely, and we know that well and we're going into economics here. But what you're getting at is that cost is what it takes to produce the existing service. Price is whatever I tell you it is.
Speaker 2Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3And I can't give you. And as long as it's a commercialized market, I can give you whatever price it is, unless there's true transparency around price and some form of regulation around price.
Speaker 2Yeah, well, let's dig into one of those areas that you all have been very active in. Let's talk about the work that you all did during the pandemic, because you were like front and center in all of that. So I wanted to give you that opportunity to kind of tell us about that work and dig in a little bit.
Speaker 3No, thank you. So the trusted messengers in community we really work with them to how do we strengthen their capacity to do so much of the work that they have already been doing? Through that we were really able to grow vaccine access and confidence in communities where access and disparities and inequities were already prevalent. I'll give you some amazing numbers here efforts with those many community-based organizations across the country. We were able to ensure that 51 million people receive critical information about COVID-19 as well as flu vaccines. And that's specifically because of the partnerships there with our vaccine equity and access project, with our vaccine equity and access project.
Speaker 3With that we saw these partners who really really leveled up and were able to strengthen and amplify provider relationships within the communities that they were already serving. For example, I think of one partner who was out of Raleigh I think we have talked about it earlier. Some of the personal experiences, like racism and queer phobia from even the healthcare providers, like it's causing many LGBTQ plus and same to the loving people, especially those of color, to really have some distrust with the medical community and this is a major barrier for LGBTQ plus individuals who are seeking care, including COVID-19 vaccinations. So to combat this this particular partner in Raleigh, they really leaned into getting local drag queens to serve as influential messengers to help educate people about the COVID-19 vaccine and because of that we saw vaccine confidence and vaccinations increase in that area.
Speaker 2I love that so much. Yeah, david Fetterman is in the evaluation world, is you know so amazing, right? And that is exactly like the work they've done. You know his work, especially in developing areas. You know India. They're doing a lot of work in India with TB and that's exactly the model. Like you, go to the folks who are the people you are trying to reach, and they carry the message forward because they're not gonna they're not gonna listen to someone who looks like me. They're just not. I mean the trust. It would take years to build that level of trust and we don't have that when you're talking about something like a pandemic exactly, exactly.
Strengthening Healthcare Equity Through Collaboration
Speaker 3Well, I'm glad you mentioned that because because there's another thing that we're doing during the well, as you remember, the American Rescue Plan Act think of 2021, also known as COVID-19 stimulus package. What it did was it provided states, programs and individuals with different levels of short-term financial relief, and those funds were. They were sent to states with the ultimate goal of providing some support to those who were hit especially hard by the pandemic. Who were hit especially hard by the pandemic. One of those programs that saw receive an influx of money for support during the pandemic was home and community-based services. It's not like that support that we provide the individuals on Medicaid so that they could age and live in their communities with the support that they need. So the way that states were actually supposed to work with communities in developing their spending plan. So we actually wanted to look at if that was actually being done equitably. So we looked at all 50 states, we worked with a community advisory board, we worked with state partners and there are some really key lessons learned there. One we looked at all states. We found that all states, of course, had some room to grow. When we looked at all states, we found that all states, of course, had some room to grow, but states who had some form of pre-existing equity initiatives they were able to incorporate them in their office spending plan more efficiently and effectively than states who did not. So some type of existing infrastructure around engagement was really critical because, to your point, we don't have the time during public health emergency to rebuild relationships. Also, those equity and engagement activities that we thought they and engagement activities that we thought they incorporate most often were related to workforce as well as technology.
Speaker 3Hcbs workforce is predominantly caregivers. Many and most of them are unpaid. We know that they're disproportionately women, disproportionately women of color. A small statistic before that said with caregivers that if they were classified as part of the healthcare economy, that it would be the largest sector of our overall healthcare economy in a vast legal unpaid. Many also did things such as which is really important was being able to get that mobilization grant to community-based organizations so that they can lean into some of this home and community-based services work. And I think the last really critical lesson was that really being able to work across agency and across sectors to provide approaches that was actually more tailored to individual and community needs was a really successful strategy in making sure that people really had access to home and community-based services and that the caregivers also had the support that they needed so that they could provide quality care.
Speaker 2Yeah, and I think most of those caregivers are family members when you're talking about being unpaid correct, Is that not correct?
Speaker 3It's correct, but of course there are many diverse voices as well as diverse roles of caregivers Sometimes the word youth interchangeably with direct care workers. Of course, we know LGBTQ community have a lot of access issues with getting caregivers, particularly when they're predominantly family members. We also know that accessing home and community-based services is a real barrier for Latinx community and population. There are probably some hidden voices, such as our peers who may be doing child care caregiving as well as for older adults at the same time.
Speaker 2Gotcha Gotcha, but what I hear you saying is the outreach was more successful when there was a foundation to build on. States weren't just starting all over, they weren't starting from ground zero. And I think about all of the race, equity, inclusion. Things are being rolled back in various states and institutions and what your research shows is like no, that foundation is really critical in getting that healthcare access and that information out to the communities who need it the most the communities who need it the most.
Speaker 3Absolutely, it's a really integral part of our healthcare delivery system and our public health infrastructure. And I tell you what we're really facing a potential perfect storm here, because that ARPA funding is set to end soon In many states, as I mentioned, use that to shore up the workforce, whether that's providing more direct care workers or more caregivers or increasing their pay. If states have not identified a sustainable form of funding for that, that is set to end. That that is set to end as well. We've just had an ending to the Bridge Access Program, which provided low-cost vaccines to low-income communities, and we know long COVID is real.
Speaker 3Often those diagnosed predominantly or disproportionately impact communities of color. The reason we've had, I would say, some of the lowering of COVID prevalence, as well as COVID incidence rates, is because we've had access to low-cost vaccines, and I imagine I don't have any data to prove this yet, but I imagine that many of these individuals with long COVID often are probably going undiagnosed with disability, cannot go to work for long periods of time and may be depending on home and community-based services themselves, such as family caregivers. And when the defunding put out is ending as well, we may be about to face a perfect storm of this again, this synergistic impact of two different systems whose support was there, that may be ending for communities who need them most. So, to your point, resourcing communities and community-based organizations and those trusted messengers really, really is a key and a critical component of our infrastructure.
Speaker 2And Community Catalyst's plan is to kind of be there now that COVID is over. You guys are not going anywhere. You're still doing that work.
Speaker 3Absolutely. As a matter of fact, we actually just had a convening last week with some of our partners who are doing this work. So, as you said, we are here for the long haul and we're here to support and learn from and learn with our partners. As a matter of fact, they've been so effective in their work that many of the communities have actually come to those partners and said you know what? We actually want to learn more from you. And some of the partners are saying that we want to do more. We are actually. Some of them are saying, like public libraries, we're like you know what we're new to this? We actually have been like serving, as now, the community hubs of health information exchange, particularly around COVID. But now that we're kind of in this groove like how can you help provide us with more technical assistance in learning so that we can actually do a whole lot more? And I think that's the best messaging that we really love how can we take this existing infrastructure and where people are already doing great work and strengthen their capacity to do more, particularly when communities ask for it? I'll tell you quickly.
Speaker 3I remember speaking to someone who actually was Dr Deborah Birx around the White House response to COVID-19. And she was saying how? You know, we have to innovate, but innovation doesn't often mean that we have to create something new. Sometimes it looks like a re-imagination of current resources. For example, we had to figure out how to get vaccines to everywhere and some of the thoughts immediately were well, let's make sure to get them to every Walgreens and CVS. Would that work if there's a Walgreens or CVS in your community? Maybe the rural communities that I'm from we don't have a Walgreens or CVS, but they all have a dollar store.
Speaker 2I was going to say that but there's a dollar store.
Speaker 3So how do we use this? We also know we all have a post office in every zip code, right, and they're pretty good with delivery. And probably 1950s or so, as a society we decided that every community was going to have at least an elementary and middle or high school. So we have these places, they have it in an access. How can we use them as spaces where we could even initiate things that the telehealth business? Just people do not have broadband access.
Speaker 2Yeah, absolutely. You know we do a lot of work in rural communities and have a big project in education and gosh. During COVID, those schools were delivering food. They were going out in communities with Wi-Fi on the bus and parking themselves where people could get access to Wi-Fi. Yeah, there's all sorts of creative ways. If we would just imagine what it could look like.
Speaker 3And, honestly, you know what Communities are never devoid of solutions. What they have been devoid of is the resources and the political will and the capital in order to act upon on those community driven solutions. I would always ask us to sit with a really important question, which is are we doing this work on the community, which we do have a history of doing that, which is quite extractive, I would say in Hormfool Are we doing this for communities, which I think often brings a saviorism, complex orientation to it? And it's usually probably not for communities as much as for our own town, right, but hopefully we're doing this with communities. We get to co-develop and we get to co-own what that looks like.
Speaker 2Yeah, I love that and that's such a great place to kind of bring this home, and I would just let folks know that the resources that Community Catalyst has on their paper are really amazing if you want to learn more about some of the work that they're doing and do a deeper dive. But, dr Wilson, as I let you go today, what is next for you?
Speaker 3So one. I think we are really committed to honestly making sure that all of this work is centered on race equity and health justice. As I mentioned, I think we're right in the middle of a bold, messy, hard and, I would say, rewarding strategic plan to make sure that every community have what they need. I think what that means honestly is for us. We've also made a commitment to becoming an anti-racist organization Really big, bold, I would say becoming, because I think this work is dynamic, right, it's not linear or trying to get the point A to point B. I think that requires a lot of learning, a lot of unlearning a lot of relearning.
Speaker 3So we're really committed to that journey to do a network and right alongside those partners that we have at local, state and national level, and last question when you look to the future, what community possibilities do you see?
Speaker 3I am honestly, I'm actually excited about them. I think we do still have the possibility to ensure that we have a health system that actually puts people on all the profit. I think opportunity gets there. I think that's even harmful to the many providers and clinicians that we have and we're hearing them speak out about that now and I think we have an opportunity to build alliances there and across movements that we may not have seen before. We still have a lot of room to in imperative, to address the structural racism and inequities that underpin our system, and through this, I think all this can only work when we have a system that is both responsive as well as accountable to the people that it serves.
Speaker 2Yeah, a hundred percent agree. So, brandon, is the best way for folks to get in touch with you through Community Catalyst website or LinkedIn or yeah, yeah, you can do any one of those.
Speaker 3Okay, I am on LinkedIn. You can find me on. Probably they can't find me there, but you can find me on X. And yes, you can always go to communitycatalystorg to see all of our work and to connect with us.
Speaker 2Awesome. Well, Dr Wilson, thank you so much for joining me on this show today. This has been a great conversation. I can't wait to see what happens in the next couple of years. You guys are doing amazing work.
Speaker 3Thank you so much, and so are you. Appreciate the conversation, and we will have to talk again about the book, second recommendation for it, so I'm going to go read it.
Speaker 2Awesome. Let me know what you think. All right, thank you All right, will do.
Speaker 3Thank you, anne.
Speaker 2Hi everybody. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of Community Possibilities. Please like and share the episode. Share it with a community leader you know and love, or just someone who needs a little boost today. Know and love, or just someone who needs a little boost today. If you could take an extra minute or two and leave a review, that would be so helpful. Now I just want to remind you that my course, powerful Evidence Evaluation for Non-Evaluators, is live. We are offering a 50% discount as a pilot. Thank you to the first 10 folks who register for the course.
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