Watch a local news story on ILAACP Town Hall Meetings in Illinois!

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

 

Many of you have been asking, "What's next?" Over 6,000 DVDs are in use, hundreds of organizations are hosting screenings around the country, numerous groups are using our Discussion Guide and Action Toolkit... Now what?

 

California Newsreel, with Vital Pictures, produced UNNATURAL CAUSES and its accompanying tools to help organizations develop and build support for actions and policies that promote health equity. Your work so far has exceeded even our own hopes and expectations.

 

Now, to move things to the next level, we'd like to learn more about what everyone has been doing: what's worked, what hasn't, actions taken, etc. We will then share your successes, recommendations and lessons learned in using the series.

 

Please stay tuned for an invitation to participate in the UNNATURAL CAUSES feedback dialogue. Until then, keep sending us info for the Events Calendar and make sure you've registered for Connect Up!

 

Sincerely,

Larry Adelman, Executive Producer

Rachel Poulain, Director of Outreach

and the UNNATURAL CAUSES team

• iTunes: Download half-hour podcasts of Sir Michael Marmot and Dr. Nancy Krieger, edited from interviews conducted during the making of UNNATURAL CAUSES. More interviews with other scholars coming soon! Search for us on iTunes or subscribe directly: http://www.unnaturalcauses.org/assets/xml/unnaturalcauses.xml
  
  
• YouTube: Visit the UNNATURAL CAUSES channel to watch program excerpts and Web-exclusive videos. Help us increase the series' visibility and raise awareness of health inequities by leaving comments, rating your favorites, embedding videos on your blog or site, and sharing them widely.

 

In June, the Illinois African American Coalition for Prevention partnered with Aetna insurance to convene UNNATURAL CAUSES town hall meetings in Cook, Peoria, and Kane counties. More than 270 people attended and participated in two-hour focus groups on regional policies and initiatives to promote health equity that followed the screenings. Watch local television coverage.

 

In preparation, over 40 facilitators and note-takers were trained to elicit and record the discussion. In addition, the Cook County screening included a public hearing convened by the Health & Healthcare Disparities Committee of the Illinois General Assembly – with experts from Aetna, Cook County DPH, Illinois Violence Prevention Authority, and Chicago State University – to present state legislators with a health equity framework and ideas for legislation around health literacy, violence, and food security.

 

Through this initiative, ILAACP has established important ties with community-based organizations from around the state from different sectors, including the Heartland Community Health Clinic, Neighborhood House Association, and Quad County Urban League. The ILAACP, together with the Midwest Latino Health Research Training and Policy Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is now reviewing the focus group discussions toward establishing a menu of next steps.

 

 

O-CBPH has been using UNNATURAL CAUSES to stimulate wide-reaching discussion about health inequities with health advocates, CBOs, community foundation leaders, and university faculty, students, and staff in Little Rock; residents in West Helena; and delegates at the Black Health Expo and AR American Public Health Association Meeting.

 

By teaming up with the state PBS station AETN and developing a listserv and Web site, O-CBPH has been able to generate momentum to engage community:

Inspired by questions following a screening of "When the Bough Breaks" for a university antenatal and neonatal education and research group, the O-PBPH is designing a research project to track African-American women's experiences of discrimination during pregnancy. In the longer term, the O-PBPH and community partners are working to develop an Arkansas Center for Health Equity.

 

• Health Equity Through Land Reform (San Francisco, CA) 
• Knox County Health Department Encore Screenings (Knoxville, TN)
• SF Health Education Training Center Screenings (San Francisco, CA)
• Monroe County Screening of "Not Just a Paycheck" (Monroe, MI)