• Health Promotion Practice: September 29, 2022

    Cultivating a Healthier Policy Landscape: The Building Healthy Communities Initiative

    In Cultivating a Healthier Policy Landscape: The Building Healthy Communities Initiative, a recent article penned by PI’s Juliet Simms, Rob Baird, Sarah Mittermaier, and Manal J. Aboelata, the authors examine how local public health departments can identify and secure policy and systems changes that will achieve health equity and improve health outcomes across diverse populations.

    “To achieve health equity, we must address factors that drive elevated rates of illness and injury—and challenge the decisions, decision makers, policies, and practices that create and perpetuate...

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  • CNN Health: August 31, 2022

    US life expectancy lowest in decades after dropping nearly a full year in 2021

    In this CNN Health article on the major decrease in US life expectancy within the past year, a drop which disproportionately affects vulnerable communities, PI's Ruben Cantu is quoted: " 'A lot of the talk is going to be around the pandemic. But we need to think about what has driven the conditions that have allowed certain communities to be more vulnerable in the first place, like crowded housing, poor access to health care and low-income jobs that don't allow for paid sick leave.' "

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  • PEW: February 11, 2022

    Rising Gun Deaths Push Cities to Shore Up Police and Services

    PI's Lisa Fujie Parks is quoted in PEW's recent piece about how gun safety experts are trying to balance relying on law enforcement and engaging others, like social workers, to reduce violence in communities. Gun violence has risen in during the past three years of the COVID-19 pandemic. She says, "There is still an imbalance in the way cities approach gun violence, with an overemphasis on policing and punishment instead of preventing and addressing the trauma that comes with systemic racism and violence."

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  • Los Angeles Times: September 30, 2021

    PI's Manal J. Aboelata's LTE in response to "‘We may lose this.’ Despair over gentrification reaches new depths in South L.A.”

    PI's Manal J. Aboelata responded to "‘We may lose this.’ Despair over gentrification reaches new depths in South L.A.”. In her letter, Manal writes:

    "Since 2016, L.A. County voters have approved a series of tax measures to make the area more livable.

    The lion’s share of those revenues should be reinvested in South L.A. — where the need is greatest — to build and maintain public parks (Measure A, 2016), create free and...

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  • The Trace: June 15, 2021

    The American Rescue Plan Is Officially Funding Gun Violence Prevention

    In this article in The Trace, PI's Lisa Fujie Parks is quoted about how Multnomah County, Oregon plans to increase spending on gun violence prevention by millions of dollars in FY 2022. PI helped the county with its recent violence prevention efforts. 

    " "Things were looking pretty dire for the county’s budget until the American Rescue Plan money came into the conversation. It was a surprise, because we’re used to being told there’s no money for anything. I think there’s an awareness that things have gotten worse and could continue to get worse if we don’t do something. And that...

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  • Everytown for Gun Safety: May 27, 2021

    Invisible Wounds: Gun Violence and Community Trauma among Black Americans

    In this from Everytown for Gun Violence, Prevention Institute and PI's Howard Pinderhughes are featured for contributing to the definition of community trauma, which includes symptoms of illness that extend beyond individuals who directly witness violence in communities characterized by high levels of violence. 

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  • Malheur Enterprise: April 1, 2021

    SOLUTIONS: Experiences elsewhere seek to quell abuse, providing lessons for Malheur County

    In this piece in Malheur Enterprise, PI's Lisa Fujie Parks is quoted on the effectiveness of school-based violence prevention programs. “By doing these multiple things that shift the environment and shift how people were behaving, they were able to reduce sexual violence victimization in dating relationships by 50%, sexual violence perpetration by peers – outside of dating relationships – by 47% and sexual harassment perpetration by 34%, compared to control schools that did not receive the program,” said Parks.

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  • Health Affairs : February 25, 2021

    To Support Health Equity, Let’s Rethink How Foundations Evaluate Grantees

    Jason Lacsamana of the St. Joseph Community Partnership Fund—and Prevention Institute’s partner on the Intersections Initiative—provides ideas for rethinking the way funders evaluate investments in healthy, safe, and equitable communities in his new Health Affairs blog. “We must make sure community residents not only lead funded programmatic work but also drive how we think about evaluation and how we identify what works to improve health and create a just society.”

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  • The Sacramento Bee: February 20, 2021

    How California can make the vaccine distribution system more equitable

    In her op-ed in the Sacramento Bee, Manal J. Aboelata writes about how California's vaccine rollout is reinforcing rather than reducing inequities in our health system. She highlights South L.A. as one example of why we can and should invest in vaccine-distribution efforts at community-based organizations and health centers, which can reach people in neighborhoods that have been most devastated by the virus. 

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