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Louisville, KY residents and founders of the Institute for Health, Air, Water and Soil on the definition of a population and the environmental determinants of health

Population health has been a key discussion point throughout the Salzburg Global Seminar: Hooked on Health Care: Designing Strategies for Better Health. A key point of interest for two Fellows was how we define a population and what aspects of health need to be considered to truly benefit the population.

Ted Smith and Christy Brown both operate within Louisville, KY, USA and are both part of an urban laboratory called the Institute for Healthy Air, Water and Soil.

“This seminar came at a really important time especially for the US because we are really ready to work on the runaway health problems in our country,” said Ted Smith, executive director of the institute as well as chief of civic innovation for the city of Louisville. 

“It’s been wonderful to get the perspectives of a wide variety of other countries and professionals who have come from many different walks of life, who share this passion for tackling these issues.”

Smith’s personal interest and focus is on cities and their ability to be a place where great health work can be established and implemented.

He went on to discuss the shared interest of several Fellows around the topic of population health and how we define a population. 

“Many of the individuals here were very excited about the idea of population health and looking at the social benefits of good health,” he told Salzburg Global. “We normally just think about the health of all of us as a population but we really haven’t challenged the assumptions about what a population is. For some, population health is about the health of the world, for some the population of a country, in my case it’s a city and it can even be just be the neighborhood you live in. This gathering was a great opportunity for us to push our limits. Does population need to be such a big scary word or can it be something more local? 

“I believe population [health] is about communities and where people live, and the population needs a healthy environment to be happy and healthy.”

As the health of the population does not only revolve around the individual, environmental factors can be another major determinant of health.

Smith was accompanied to Salzburg by his fellow local health advocate, Christy Brown, the co-founder of the Institute for Healthy Air, Water and Soil. Like Smith, Brown has a keen interest in environmental health and creating healthier communities. 

“It’s been interesting to learn from all the brilliant attendees here and great to be able to take home ideas and lessons that will lead to solutions in making our city a healthier community.”

Brown is involved in a wide variety of civic organizations in Louisville, KY, and besides being a long-term Louisvillian and a civic activist, Brown is also a mother of three and grandmother of nine, a fact to which she credits her passion for population health.

“I believe health is the most important word to most individuals around our globe, but it’s not health with the narrow interpretation.” She said. “Health includes all parts of our being; our spiritual life, our psychological life, and our physical life. Physical health has dominated the discussion on health so I’m hoping that we can change the discussion to connect these health elements together for both a healthy community and healthy individuals.” 

Brown also is passionate about the environment and the impact the natural environment has on population health. 

“Environmental health, the health of our natural environment, it’s all interconnected and it’s essential to having healthy human beings.” She said. “You can’t have healthy human beings when you don’t have a healthy natural environment with healthy air, water and soil.”

While focused on her local city, Brown sees the importance in connecting global leaders both within and outside the field of health.

“We’re pining for leadership and pining for voices that we admire, voices that can help guide us. My hope is that there will be some interest in calling upon great global leaders, as well as health leaders, to bring their voices together and encourage other professions to care about health in the broader sense, to create a global movement of harmony and health.”

Ted Smith and Christy Brown were participants at the session Hooked on Health Care: Designing Systems for Better Health.The session is part of the Salzburg Global series “Health and Health Care Innovation in the 21st Century” and was held in collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Health Foundation. More information on the session can be found here: www.salzburgglobalseminar.org/go/559