Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Reclaiming Public Health as a Social Movement with Dr. Jamila M. Porter and Aysha Dominguez Pamukcu

Transcript

Reclaiming Public Health as a Social Movement with Dr. Jamila M. Porter and Aysha Dominguez Pamukcu · Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

0:00
Hello, and welcome to the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
0:02
My name is Chanel Banger. And today I
0:04
have the pleasure of speaking with two brilliant
0:05
leaders. We are joined today by Doctor. Jamila
0:08
Porter
0:09
and Ayesha Pamukkou,
0:11
who join us today, share insights into their
0:13
backgrounds, their new book that they coauthored, strategic
0:16
skills for public health practice, advancing equity and
0:19
justice, and a bit more. Doctor Porter and
0:21
Ayesha, thank you so much for joining me
0:23
today.
0:24
Thanks. Glad to be here. Perfect. And, well,
0:27
before we get into everything, I'll have you
0:28
each introduce yourselves and tell us a bit
0:30
about your background and work in health care.
0:32
Doctor Porter, do you wanna get us started
0:34
out?
0:35
Sure.
0:36
So I'm Jamila Porter. I
0:39
am chief of staff at the De Beaumont
0:41
Foundation, and I am also,
0:43
principal investigator of MADE for Health Justice. And
0:46
MADE is an acronym that stands for modernized
0:48
anti racist data ecosystems.
0:51
I've worked in public health a very long
0:53
time now,
0:55
couple of decades,
0:56
working in a variety of areas,
0:59
including,
1:00
social determinants of health, data and transportation justice,
1:04
policy evaluation,
1:06
and and community power building.
1:08
And I have been with DeBeaumont
1:11
for almost five years now. Before this, I
1:14
worked in injury and violence prevention,
1:16
in partnership with nonprofit organizations and state and
1:20
local health departments.
1:21
And I've in addition to the work in
1:24
philanthropy that I do now and in the
1:26
nonprofit sector, I also worked in, consulting and
1:30
international development.
1:32
Thank you so much, doctor Porter. Thank you.
1:34
And Ayesha?
1:35
Hi. Thanks again for having us. My name
1:37
is Ayesha Pamukkou.
1:39
I'm the director of the policy fund at
1:41
the San Francisco Foundation.
1:43
And there, I work on government community partnerships
1:47
on passing equitable housing,
1:50
policies and other policies that,
1:53
improve,
1:54
economic equity in the San Francisco Bay Area.
1:57
I'm also the founder of movement praxis.
2:00
And my origin story, which Jamille and I
2:03
both talk about, in, in the book, how
2:05
we came to public health, is I'm a
2:08
human rights and civil rights lawyer
2:10
who found her way into public health. And,
2:14
there's been no turning back from there. So
2:17
happy to be here.
2:18
Perfect. Thank you both for those introductions.
2:20
And now getting into it a bit, can
2:21
you both talk about the book that you've
2:23
coauthored?
2:25
Absolutely.
2:26
I'll start and then I should have feel
2:27
free to maybe if that works for you
2:29
to throw in.
2:31
So for our book entitled Advancing Equity and
2:34
Justice, we
2:35
describe it as a call to reimagine
2:38
public health
2:40
as a truly dynamic
2:42
social movement that is rooted in
2:45
community leadership. In
2:47
public health and also in health care, it's
2:48
often
2:49
this sense of
2:51
a a a professionalized
2:53
space with
2:54
experts that have,
2:56
only,
2:57
you know, clinical
2:58
practice
2:59
or,
3:00
expertise
3:01
grounded in research and formal institutions
3:04
and academia.
3:06
And that is part of who is,
3:08
within the within public health practice, but really
3:11
our roots and our foundations
3:14
are in social justice.
3:16
And so this book is about
3:18
confronting the root causes of health inequities,
3:21
which are
3:22
powerful systems that determine how long and how
3:25
well we live. But the solution
3:27
that is already
3:28
part of who we are as a field,
3:30
which is around community
3:32
leadership and,
3:34
and social justice movements. And so through the
3:37
book, we are challenging practitioners
3:40
to move beyond
3:42
some of the
3:43
ideology we have around technical fixes, but instead
3:47
really embracing
3:49
the moral clarity and sort of collective action
3:51
that we need to improve health for all.
3:54
And so this book is a practical guide
3:56
that helps readers to do this work
3:59
and includes
4:01
research,
4:02
policy,
4:03
historical context,
4:05
and systems analysis, but also has
4:07
insights from
4:09
movement leaders, community members, and others who've been
4:12
engaged in this work, as well as really
4:15
amazing
4:17
and enlivening illustrations
4:19
that give,
4:21
additional
4:22
focus and
4:23
clarity to the work ahead for public health,
4:26
but also in a way that brings joy
4:28
and hope
4:29
to the way that we believe that we
4:31
should approach the work.
4:33
Amazing. Thanks, Jamila.
4:35
I would add that
4:38
the intention of this book is to be
4:40
visionary,
4:41
to expand the radical imagination of our field
4:45
and really embrace our role as a social
4:47
movement, as Jamila was saying, but it's also
4:50
practical.
4:51
Right? How do we do that? How do
4:53
we think more like a movement? How How
4:55
do we reclaim our social justice roots,
4:58
especially at a time
4:59
when
5:00
both science
5:02
and our democracy
5:03
are under attack?
5:04
And because the stakes are so urgent, we
5:07
really think this is a book
5:09
for our times,
5:10
and it gives our field a much needed
5:13
guide for
5:14
how do you respond to disinformation?
5:16
How do we address,
5:18
equity initiatives being rolled back and even the
5:21
word equity being, prohibited in some places?
5:25
And how do we address
5:27
the declining trust in our institutions, including our
5:30
public health institutions,
5:32
as a threat to our community health and
5:35
the very foundation of our democracy?
5:38
So we really,
5:39
hope and anticipate that readers will find some
5:42
answers and some inspiration in this book.
5:45
I love that. That's truly important what you
5:47
guys are doing right now and kind of
5:49
zooming out just a little bit, can we
5:51
talk about some maybe public health trends that
5:54
you're both keeping an eye on in your
5:55
roles today and,
5:57
or just overall health care trends? Doctor Porter,
6:00
I'll start with you again.
6:02
Sure. I think
6:03
that building on what we talk about in
6:06
the book, the trend around and it's been
6:09
happening for a long time, but it really
6:12
hit home this year,
6:14
with the new presidential administration is around
6:18
the equity and justice initiatives and the use
6:20
of the term equity and
6:22
the prohibitions
6:23
around it and honestly the,
6:26
castigation of people who do this work. And
6:29
I think that is a trend that is
6:31
continuing. It has intensified.
6:33
It has,
6:34
and it continues to be
6:36
a,
6:38
area of focus for our work, but also
6:41
for the nation as a whole. And also
6:43
and I'll note that in the book, we
6:45
talk about this in vivid detail, very honestly,
6:49
confronting it, no holds barred,
6:51
and about
6:53
the essential nature of equity, of justice, of
6:56
liberation for public health work, for advancing community
7:00
health, and how they are
7:02
inexorably
7:03
neat. So we can't have one without the
7:05
other. We can't have improvements in health no
7:07
matter what area we're looking at across the
7:10
social determinants.
7:11
Whether we're talking about economic health, education,
7:15
transportation,
7:16
you name it, we need equity and justice
7:18
to do that. So in the book, we
7:20
also talk about how to do the work
7:22
without saying the words, that the words are
7:24
only a way that we've used to characterize
7:28
and sort of put a descriptor on the
7:29
work, but the work itself is about,
7:32
as Doctor. Kumar Jones notes, about valuing all
7:36
people and populations equally,
7:38
about
7:39
recognizing and rectifying
7:41
historic and contemporary injustices, and providing people with
7:44
resources according to need. So if we're doing
7:46
those three things, we're doing the work of
7:49
equity. If we're transforming
7:51
systems to make them better for everyone, we're
7:53
doing the work of justice. And I think
7:55
that that is an underlying
7:58
undercurrent of what we're seeing around the,
8:01
work people are trying to advance today amid
8:04
a lot of the limitations and barriers that
8:06
have been put ahead of them that we
8:08
openly address in the book.
8:11
Absolutely.
8:12
And it's incredibly difficult to do work that
8:14
you can't name. And I think two maybe
8:17
two other aspects
8:19
of the attacks on equity and justice right
8:22
now, to put a even a finer point
8:24
on it are, scapegoating
8:27
of marginalized
8:29
people.
8:29
And then also something else we talk about
8:31
in the book, anticipatory compliance.
8:34
In terms of scapegoating,
8:35
we're really seeing,
8:38
a very concerning trend that is endangering of
8:41
our health,
8:43
escapegoating,
8:45
public health and the folks who do this
8:47
work and scapegoating marginalized populations
8:50
as a way,
8:52
of shifting blame from
8:54
very flawed and dangerous systems onto the people
8:58
who are trying to fix them.
9:00
We're seeing,
9:01
scapegoating,
9:02
and we talk in the book about how
9:04
this is a language that suggests that some
9:07
people are disposable
9:09
or some people don't deserve good health.
9:12
When we see, attacks and attacks and raids
9:15
on immigrant communities,
9:17
when we see,
9:18
the erasure and attacks on
9:21
trans and,
9:22
gender expansive people.
9:25
These are
9:27
all very concerning trends that I think our
9:29
field needs to push back on, and we
9:30
need to advance a more inclusive vision of
9:33
what it looks like when everyone has a
9:36
stake in community health. No community is disposable.
9:39
And if we have equity and justice,
9:42
everyone can benefit, especially when we bring in
9:44
people from the margins.
9:46
But I think the consequence of this environment
9:49
where folks are being scapegoated,
9:52
and as Jamila said,
9:53
you know, people are under,
9:55
very real risk
9:57
is we're seeing, a parallel and concerning trend
10:00
of anticipatory
10:01
compliance.
10:02
So, institutions
10:04
that and people that are preemptively,
10:08
weakening their own ability
10:10
to advance equity and justice or to do
10:12
public health work,
10:14
in
10:15
some sort of, fear based response and trying
10:18
to avoid
10:19
potential political backlash.
10:21
And I think that's exactly the opposite of
10:23
what we want to be doing right now,
10:25
where we want to be rushing towards equity
10:27
and justice.
10:29
And we want to be embracing our role
10:31
as public health practitioners,
10:34
in making our communities more inclusive,
10:37
more safe.
10:38
And,
10:40
we need to be rejecting the practice of
10:42
anticipatory compliance and rather looking at how can
10:45
we be more like a social movement and
10:47
how can we be expanding the possibilities of
10:49
health for everybody.
10:52
Absolutely. Absolutely.
10:53
And now as we finish out 2025, we
10:56
all know that there's a lot of daunting
10:57
things going on in health care.
10:59
Could we maybe close out our conversation by
11:02
focusing on a few bright spots? Like, what
11:04
what are you seeing in your role today
11:05
that's getting you excited?
11:07
One thing I'm really excited about right now
11:10
is I think we're on our way to
11:12
seeing public health really actualize
11:15
itself as a social movement,
11:17
in particularly because we're seeing some incredible organizing
11:20
and power building.
11:22
We're seeing public health reach out across silos,
11:26
with other partners, with other communities,
11:29
with, you know, unlikely suspects to really build
11:33
our power so that we can set an
11:35
agenda
11:36
and we can
11:37
move the needle on the issues that we're
11:39
trying to move. And I think that really
11:42
lies in some of the organizing and the
11:44
outreach that we're seeing.
11:46
And it really lies in some of the
11:49
expansive visioning that we've been seeing folks do.
11:51
So not just
11:53
being stuck in the current moment of what's
11:55
happening and what's hurting our communities, and certainly
11:57
there's a number of those things.
11:59
But also what is the future we're trying
12:01
to build and how do we bring folks
12:03
along? I think we're seeing some really great
12:05
bright spots in both those places.
12:07
And I'll add to that that I think
12:08
we're seeing,
12:10
even amidst the backlash
12:12
and the, as I should describe, the scapegoating
12:15
of communities
12:16
and other marginalized,
12:18
populations, I think that we're seeing
12:21
people push back. I think we're in a
12:23
way that is both positive
12:25
and inspirational.
12:27
We're seeing amidst efforts to
12:30
detain and and unjustly,
12:33
incarcerate immigrants. We're seeing solidarity
12:35
across
12:36
all kinds of identity lines of people who
12:39
know that this is wrong and have come
12:41
together to
12:42
to fight against it. And so I think,
12:45
we're seeing folks not only be
12:48
in more in solidarity with each other, but
12:50
they're also,
12:52
I'm really
12:53
inspired by the fact that people are not
12:55
giving up and giving in and that we
12:57
have folks who are still
13:00
deeply
13:01
connected to what social justice really means and
13:04
to making sure that our country, that our
13:06
democracy really works for everyone. So I think
13:09
the brightest spot that I can see is
13:11
that,
13:12
despite many of the challenges that we faced
13:14
for a very long time, but in particular
13:16
over the last
13:17
calendar year, that folks are still
13:20
still connecting, still energized, and still want and
13:23
still hopeful
13:24
for a more just and more truly united
13:27
nation.
13:28
I love that. And, Jamila, something that we
13:31
keep saying until we're blue in the face
13:33
is that, for public health to embrace equity
13:36
and justice,
13:37
we really want folks to understand that there's
13:39
nothing new about this, and this is actually
13:42
a return to our origins.
13:44
This is a return to the very start
13:47
of the field of public health
13:49
When we were approaching
13:51
health as a collective, right, we were
13:54
advocating for government's responsibility
13:56
for people to have good, safe living and
13:59
working conditions.
14:00
And we were really framing health, not as
14:04
something people are individually responsible for, but something
14:07
that happens because of the different systems we
14:09
live in. So really want to encourage folks
14:12
to embrace,
14:13
equity and justice, not just as something the
14:15
moment calls for, but the absolute origins of
14:18
our field and where we come from.
14:20
Exactly. And who we are.
14:22
It's who we are and who we need
14:24
to continue
14:25
to show up and show ourselves to be.
14:28
Absolutely. Thank you both. But before I let
14:30
you go, can you restate the name of
14:33
the book and where to find them or
14:34
where listeners can, reach out to you if
14:37
they have questions?
14:39
Absolutely. The book is called Advancing Equity and
14:42
Justice,
14:43
and we'll be putting out some companion resources
14:46
shortly, such as a coloring book and additional
14:50
resources. So we encourage folks to stay tuned.
14:53
Folks can also buy the book at APHA
14:56
press. It's also available on Amazon.
14:59
We encourage,
15:00
folks to reach out to us if you
15:03
have any thoughts about the book or want
15:04
to engage on the topics. We're available,
15:07
at our respective institutions.
15:09
I'm at the San Francisco Foundation and Movement
15:11
Praxis, and Jamila is at the De Beaumont
15:13
Foundation.
15:15
Perfect. Thank you so much. Well, Jamila and
15:17
Ayesha, I wanna thank you once again for
15:19
your time today, all the important work that
15:21
you're doing in health care and for joining
15:23
me on the Becker's Health Care podcast. Thank
15:25
you so much. Thank you. It was a
15:27
pleasure.