Human Impact Partners

September 8, 2015

The Greater Health Impacts of the Affordable Care Act

| By Marnie Purciel-Hill | My son had an accident and broke his leg and I found a lump for which a routine biopsy was needed. When these things happened to my family, I was relieved I had health insurance to help meet our medical needs. But it’s been an […]
August 27, 2015

Climate Action is Health Action: Why Support for California Climate Legislation is Good for Our Health

This week’s blog was originally published by the Public Health Institute (PHI) on August 25, 2015.  “Amid a historic drought that has been linked to climate change, California’s state legislature is currently considering bills that aim to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the coming decades. Often considered a bellwether in […]
August 20, 2015

Fair Housing for Better Health

| By Logan Harris | One year after Michael Brown was killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, galvanizing the Black Lives Matter movement, the role of housing segregation in perpetuating racial injustice is in the news. Residential segregation is one of the major mechanisms that produce racial […]
July 24, 2015

Education: the Key to Health and Success for Foster Youth

| By Carlene Ervin | This week’s post is written by HIP’s Social Media, Research, and Data Collection Summer Intern, Carlene Ervin. She is a sophomore at Yale University and a resident of Oakland, CA.  Since I was five, my foster mom told me I would go to college. She […]
July 9, 2015

A Tale of Two Policies

| By Kim Gilhuly | Last week in Massachusetts saw the release of recommendations from Gov. Charlie Baker’s task force on the epidemics of addiction to and death from opium-derived narcotics prescription drugs. The Massachusetts plan includes welcome public health solutions: 100 new beds for people addicted; increased use of […]
June 25, 2015

Does less lead mean less crime?

| By Dario Maciel | According to FBI crime statistics, between 1961 and 1991, the rate of violent crime in the United States rose by nearly fourfold. But between 1991 and 2013, the crime rate dropped by more than half, to the lowest level since 1970. Why? Was it “tough […]
June 1, 2015

What Happens to a Dream Deferred?

| By Rachel Davis | This week’s blog is a repost by Rachel Davis of Prevention Institute. She links efforts to prevent injury and death due to violence to many of the policy issues that we research at HIP, including incarceration, economic security, education, and housing policy. The article was […]
May 14, 2015

Helping Communities Break The Cycle And Regain Their Power

| By Ronald Day | Today’s guest blog post is by Ronald Day, Associate Vice President of the David Rothenberg Center for Public Policy (DRCPP), The Fortune Society. It was originally published by fortunesociety.org.  I dropped out of high school in the 9th grade. A substantial number of teenagers in my […]
May 12, 2015

Turning on the TAP: How Returning Access to Tuition Assistance for Incarcerated People Improves the Health of New Yorkers

| By Lili Farhang | Today, Human Impact Partners, the Education from the Inside Out Coalition, and our partners are excited to release a report that examines an often-overlooked aspect of providing college education for people in prison. Turning on the TAP: How Returning Access to Tuition Assistance for Incarcerated […]
May 11, 2015

Public Health and Criminal Justice: Shared Root Causes

| By Jasmine D. Graves | Today’s guest blog is by Jasmine D. Graves MPH, Special Assistant, Office of the Commissioner, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene As the public health community focuses on the root causes of ill health and inequities, there is a growing recognition […]
May 8, 2015

College Education in Prison: Why it’s a Smart Choice for Everyone

| By Marsha Weissman | Today’s guest blog post is written by by Marsha Weissman, Executive Director of Center for Community Alternatives and Sandy Lane, Professor of Public Health and Anthropology, Syracuse University “In 1994, college education programs flourished in New York State – there were 23 colleges awarding degrees […]
May 8, 2015

Our Children’s Upward Mobility and Health

| By Jonathan Heller | There is a growing awareness, both within and outside of the public health community, that where you live – down to your ZIP code – determines how healthy you are and how long you live. A study released this week looks at the reasons why […]
May 4, 2015

Good Jobs For All Would Boost Health, Reduce Inequities

| By Jonathan Heller | Last week several national organizations launched the Putting Families First: Good Jobs For All campaign to bring the issues of jobs, poverty, and inequality to the center of the national debate. “Today, our country is more aware than ever before that our entire economic system is […]
May 1, 2015

Education is a human right: Opportunity to follow international law

| By Fred Patrick | Today’s guest blog post is written by Fred Patrick, Director on Center on Sentencing and Corrections, Vera Institute of Justice. International laws declare education to be an inherent human right. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economics, Social and Cultural […]
April 23, 2015

HIA Research: When is Qualitative Research Warranted?

| By Holly Avey | [As research director at Human Impact Partners, Holly Avey spends a lot of time not just looking at our findings but thinking about how we conduct and use research. This is one in a series of blogs about the role of research in HIA.] In […]
April 17, 2015

Saving New Yorkers Money by Turning on the TAP for Learning

| By Soffiyah Elijah | Today’s guest blog post is written by Soffiyah Elijah, Executive Director of the Correctional Association of New York.  Currently, there is a ban in New York State on incarcerated people receiving financial assistance from the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) to pursue higher education while in […]
March 30, 2015

Was “Race Together” Wrong?

| By Sara Satinsky | Starbucks’ short-lived “Race Together” campaign, in which baristas wrote the phrase on coffee cups, generated lots of conversations – and lots of controversy. Was it a good idea, but poorly implemented? Did it succeed, however slightly, in nudging the nation to talk about racism? Or […]
March 19, 2015

An Uncomfortable Truth – Our Failure to Address Racism

This blog article is a re-post of an open letter to the public from Dr. Muntu Davis, who is the Health Officer and Director for Alameda County Public Health Department in California. Dr. Davis offers the kind of public health leadership we love, linking common health issues with their social […]
March 3, 2015

If Black Lives Matter, We Can’t Stay on the Sidelines

| By Jonathan Heller | Let’s not sit on the sidelines. With those words Dr. Mary Bassett, health commissioner of New York City, in a Perspective for The New England Journal of Medicine clearly and boldly declares that health professionals are accountable for fighting interpersonal and institutional racism, because of […]
February 25, 2015

The Misuse of Jails

| By Logan Harris | Most efforts to reform the criminal justice system have focused on state and federal prisons. But a recent report by the Vera Institute of Justice, Incarceration’s Front Door, examines a level of the justice system just as much in need of reform: Jails. Unlike prisons, jails are […]
February 13, 2015

HIP Interns: Where Are They Now?

| By Celia Harris | As we launched our search for a summer 2015 intern, we did a little reflecting on the wonderful interns we have had over the last seven years, and the important contributions they have made to our organization. We wondered: Where are they now? How have […]
February 10, 2015

Compassion for Individuals or Working to Change the System?

| By Lili Farhang | Two recent stories about people’s generosity toward strangers moved me deeply – but also got me thinking about the gap between our willingness to help individuals and the need to address the roots of our society’s problems. In Detroit, the Free Press featured the determination […]
January 12, 2015

Using an Inside-Outside Strategy to Build Power and Advance Equity

| By Jonathan Heller | HIP recently started the Public Health and Equity Cohort, a group of twelve emerging leaders from public health agencies around the country who are coming together to build their leadership to advance equity within their departments. In developing the 15-month curriculum for the Cohort, we […]