Health by Design

At Penn, collaboration occurs fortuitously and with impact. In 2010, I had the opportunity to partner with Marilyn Jordan Taylor, who is dean of Penn’s School of Design, and City Planning Professor Genie Birch to host the 18th International Council on Women’s Health Issues (ICOWHI) conference. The topic was “Cities and Women’s Health: Global Perspectives,” one of my deepest passions. Attracting more than 350 participants from more than 30 countries, the conference proved a launching pad for new approaches to urban women’s health.

The conference inspired a book, Women’s Health and the World’s Cities, which I was thrilled to co-edit with Professor Birch and Professor Susan Wachter of Penn’s Wharton School. We are pleased to present the book on January 24 from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Penn’s Houston Hall.

For Women’s Health and the World’s Cities, we called on scholars and practitioners from the fields of urban planning, global studies, and health sciences to consider urban planning from the perspective of women’s health and to examine the effect of urbanization on women and their health.

The chapter “Transforming Urban Environments” resonates with this imperative. Penn Nursing’s Jeane Ann Grisso and colleagues identify women from Philadelphia to Manila who have led community change. “They organize, demand services, and support one another,” the authors write. “The tenacity and commitment of women leaders, in partnership with diverse stakeholders, can lead to profound urban transformation. . . . In spite of daunting realities, women in poor urban communities continue to organize to create better lives for themselves and their children.”

As urban populations continue to expand at an unprecedented rate, the demand for our communities to be responsive and adaptive to citizens’ health needs is greater than ever. This urgent need for intervention is both health-related and dependent on the fundamental systemic needs of issues like human shelter and clean drinking water. The impact of urban living is especially felt by women as gender biases, economic disparities, outmoded infrastructure, and safety threats. Reduced access to healthcare and other resources can conspire to produce dire health outcomes.

Women play critical and multiple roles in societies as mothers, leaders, students, decision-makers, voters, and workers. Health research combined with design, business, and other areas of study and expertise here at Penn are creating an increasingly influential body of work that can serve to aid and empower not only women, but the individuals and families they care for and the communities in which they live.

Sync Your Calendars

Welcome to the spring semester! It is hardly warm outside, but the intellectual energy inside Fagin Hall more than compensates. We start the term with the return of our students and we are ready to dive into a semester of inquiry and engagement.

Next month we will welcome the esteemed Dr. Angela Barron McBride, whose new book “The Growth and Development of Nurse Leaders” stands to become as seminal in our field as her 1973 book “The Growth and Development of Mothers.” She will present a Dean’s Lecture on February 28.

Each year we look forward to granting the unique honor of the Claire M. Fagin Distinguished Researcher Lecture and Award. With great pride, we honor Dr. Barbara Riegel, an expert in chronic illness and self-care, who will present the 2012 Fagin Lecture on April 5.

This academic year is significant in the history of nursing at Penn. Our 125th anniversary is in tandem with the quarter-century mark of our Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, which will honor the work of nurse historian Dr. Joan Lynaugh with a symposium on April 14.

We will take interprofessionalism to another level with the April 17 symposium “Partners in Education and Practice: Stronger Teams, Better Health,” co-hosted with the Association of Academic Health Centers, Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine, and the Institute of Medicine.  The concept of interprofessionalism – bringing seemingly divergent healthcare professions together to respond to need – is more important than ever in our global 21st century.

On April 21, our LIFE practice will host the second annual “Sounds of West Philadelphia” Wellness Day. In the fall, our LIFE practice recognized internationally as being unique by Lancet editor-in-chief Dr. Richard Horton. Wellness Day is a wonderful opportunity to see why.

And, before we know it, we will close the semester with Commencement and Alumni Weekend, which will open on May 11 with the inaugural symposium for our new Center for Global Women’s Health, a most exciting endeavor and one that is close to my heart.

As always, there is much happening. As always, I hope to see you here, taking part in all that Penn Nursing has to offer.