FROM THE HEALTH DESK — It’s no secret that people who live in low-income, largely minority neighborhoods have lots of health problems and an overlapping set of social challenges. Or that navigating health and social services is often an aggravating, alienating, bureaucratic maze, Joanne Kenen, Commonwealth Fund journalist-in-residence at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, emails Nightly.
The Health Hub of Virginia Commonwealth University in the East End of Richmond aims to address those problems, with an array of health, community and social services in one bright, airy space. It’s part of a growing movement to co-locate and connect various health and social services — to address “social determinants of health,” factors like homelessness, joblessness and poor education.
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The Hub has also become a venue for research — with the proviso that researchers have to give to the community, as well as take, said Camille Burnett of VCU’s Office of Institutional Equity, Effectiveness and Success. And it’s a training ground. So much of U.S. health care education still takes place in hospitals — even though so much sickness begins in communities. At the Hub, Kimberly Battle, who teaches at VCU’s School of Nursing, has nursing students, community health students and advanced nurse practitioners come through.
Wayne Northey was Director of Man-to-Man/Woman-to-Woman – Restorative Christian Ministries (M2/W2) in British Columbia, Canada from 1998 to 2014, when he retired. He has been active in the criminal justice arena and a keen promoter of Restorative Justice since 1974. He has published widely on peacemaking and justice themes. You will find more about that on this website: a work in progress.
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