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From the Front Row: Challenges in health equity, literacy, and diversity

Published on June 24, 2022

This week Anya and Radha talk with Corey Dion Lewis, a clinical health coach and organizer of the My City My Health Conference…he also happens to be a podcaster! They discuss prevention, health equity, and health literacy.

Here are a few links mentioned in the show:
Corey’s podcast: thehealthyproject.co/episodes/
Conference website: mycity.health/
Resource for community-based orgs: www.findhelp.org/

Anya Morozov:

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to From the Front Row, brought to you by the University of Iowa College of Public Health. My name is Anya Morozov, and I am joined by Radha Velamuri. If this is your first time with us, welcome. We’re a student-run podcast that talks about major issues in public health and how they are relevant to anyone, both in and outside the field of public health. Today, we’re talking with Corey Dion Lewis, who is a clinical health coach for a Federally Qualified Health Center. He also happens to be a podcaster himself. He hosts The Healthy Project Podcast, which addresses topics related to health equity, prevention, diversity, and literacy for health professionals addressing today’s and tomorrow’s biggest challenges. It’s really worth a listen if you get a chance. We’ll link it in the description of today’s episode. Today, he’s here to talk with us about his work as a health coach, his podcast journey, and the conference he is organizing in November called My City My Health. Welcome to the show, Corey.

Corey Dion Lewis:

Thank you guys so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Anya Morozov:

So to get started, we mentioned in the intro addressing today’s and tomorrow’s biggest health challenges in health equity, literacy, and diversity. Can you tell us what some of these challenges are?

Corey Dion Lewis:

Whew! I’ll try to keep it short, because there are a lot of challenges right now. When we’re looking at equity, health literacy, diversity, things of that nature, the biggest challenges are confidence when we’re thinking about from the patient perspective. So their trust within the system, that’s kind of where it starts. So if patients are already going into their healthcare not trusting their provider or not trusting the system that they’re going to get appropriate care, that kind of is just a negative snowball effect. So I feel like one of the biggest challenges right now in regards to social determinants, which a lot of this kind of starts, when we’re talking about disparities and equity. Transportation, housing, these are really big, big issues, really big problems that we’re not going to solve overnight, but it’s a big deal now.

Corey Dion Lewis:

And if we’re looking at the future, so we’re looking at health literacy, things like that in the future, we’ve got to think about digital health literacy. There’s a lot of healthcare startups and a lot of healthcare companies that are looking more digital. Well, what about the patient population? Do they understand digital health as well? So we’ve got to really be thinking about that as a challenge now too, from the patient perspective, where healthcare is going.

Radha Velamuri:

That kind of makes me think about patient portals. Like, when I go to the doctor’s office, there are these online patient portals I’m supposed to log into to check health messages and stuff like that. You always hear people talk about the electronic health record from the physician front, but you bring up a really good point about from the patient perspective with, like I said, like patient portals and stuff like that. You mentioned a lot of challenges. Is there one that you think is probably on the forefront that we should address, like the greatest challenge? I’m sure they’re all very important, but is there one that you think maybe we could address in the near future or one that you think is of the utmost importance?

Corey Dion Lewis:

Yeah. And the reason why this is top of mind is because it has came up in multiple podcast episodes, and it’s diversity in clinical trials. That has been something that has… I mean, I spoke about it in three, I think, three different episodes. And I’ll kind of talk about why that’s important.

Corey Dion Lewis:

So just based off an example, I had an episode with a company called Indigenous Health, where they focus on research in Black and brown populations, things like that. The founder brought up a great example of this drug Plavix. Plavix is for high blood pressure, so it’s supposed to help with that. Well, what happened is the enzyme in Plavix that makes the drug effective, that enzyme is not present in people of Asian and Pacific Islander descent. So when those people from Hawaii who were taking that medication for blood pressure, they were dying. They were still getting heart attacks.

Corey Dion Lewis:

So there was obviously a study done to discover what was going on, and they found out that these people from this descent did not have this enzyme. But the issue was when Plavix did their clinical trial and it got FDA approval, there wasn’t a lot of diversity requirements on there. So they missed that. Ultimately, Hawaii got a, I want to say, $840 million… They sued, and they got paid, but ultimately people died because the clinical trials were not done appropriately. So that’s a big issue.

Corey Dion Lewis:

And I also did another episode with a diabetic researcher who said the same thing. It’s hard to get a diverse population in these clinical trials, especially when you’re making these medications that are supposed to help populations. You’re not getting a broad range of people. And it’s going back to that social determinants of health that I kind of talked about earlier, where there may be a study for X drug or X whatever. But if you don’t have transportation, you can’t get a way to get to this trial, because a lot of these places aren’t coming to where the people are. Well, the majority of those people that are affected are Black and brown people who don’t have transportation. So the majority are going to be those of one descent. Well, that’s not very balanced. You’re not getting everyone.

Corey Dion Lewis:

So clinical trials is going to be… If I were to pick one thing that’s going to be a challenge that can really improve the health of populations, it’s going to be getting a majority or a more diverse population in these clinical trial studies, so that will help everybody in the long run.

Radha Velamuri:

This is a huge challenge. I’m a woman of color myself. It’s really important to see diversity in clinical trials. But I was wondering if you know how we could improve that. If you have any ideas as to how we can increase participation within these clinical trials by these more diverse populations?

Corey Dion Lewis:

Yeah. I think, for me, it’s going to where they are, right? If you have a clinical trial study and it’s for a diabetic CGM or some diabetic tool or device or medication and you know that the people that you want to target can’t come to you, well, come to them. And what we’re learning in healthcare in general is community collaboration is super important. So organizing or coming together and partnering with community-based organizations that are in the community where you can say, “Hey, let’s work together to help the people of this inner-city community. Can we set up here X amount of days a week so we can get that data?” Right? Because we know that… We already know that transportation’s an issue, and they can’t come to us, or people work paycheck to paycheck. Not everybody can just leave work and go do a clinical trial. Or they can’t do a lot of these things financially because it doesn’t work out.

Corey Dion Lewis:

Well, what does that look like as far as reimbursement or payment for these people? I know a lot of these trials do pay their participants, and that is a great motivator for a lot of people. So increasing that payment. What does that hurt you? A lot of these companies that are doing these trials, a lot of these pharmaceutical companies, I don’t think they’re hurting for money, so they can… And they need that data from the people. So assist them with that. So if there’s one thing we can do, going back to what I said, it’s going to where the people are. And that’s what I believe.

Anya Morozov:

Yeah. I think that’s really a good point and not the first challenge I would’ve thought of, but you really illustrated why having diversity in clinical trials impacts people’s lives. Yeah, I think your point about community partnership is super important, too, and going to where people are.

Corey Dion Lewis:

Yeah. And one more point too just that kind of goes with the clinical trials. I just thought about this as you asked me about my mission as far as health now and in the future. We’ve really got to look at digital health trials as well. So to give you another example, so I had another podcast guest, and we were talking about ethics in digital health. And she brought up a great example of a digital health startup that focused on cancer prevention or detecting skin cancer. They trained this algorithm to detect skin cancer, right?

Corey Dion Lewis:

Well, they trained it to detect skin cancer in a different skin complexion or white complexion, but they were selling it in South America, where skin complexion is darker. And when you’re looking at skin cancer, skin cancer looks different depending on the skin color, right? That’s no good. You can’t train an algorithm on one thing and then sell it to another complexion. So we’ve really got to be looking at, okay, how do we start to train these algorithms, which it’s hard to wrap my mind around. But how do we start to get more diverse populations into these clinical trials for digital health platforms as well, so when you’re training this algorithm, they can detect the care for all different types of populations?

Anya Morozov:

Yeah, that’s so true. I think the more I’ve learned about health equity, the more you find that there’s inequities that need to be addressed in almost everything. So kind of moving on to your own path and your own journey, can you describe your path to becoming a health coach, including what exactly a health coach is? Because I was not familiar with them until I found your podcast.

Corey Dion Lewis:

Yeah, no, absolutely. It’s kind of a interesting story. I got my degree at the University of Iowa. At the time I got my degree… I was a psychology major, and I wanted to go into clinical therapy. So I was a research assistant for the Spatial, Perception, and Memory Lab on campus. And through that process, I realized this is not for me. And it’s funny I say I hated research, but to now I read a lot of research now for what I do. But at the time, I’m like, “Man, this ain’t it.” I couldn’t wrap my mind around it because I like to speak to people. I like to interact. And being an RA, I was just like in an office, looking… It just wasn’t my vibe.

Corey Dion Lewis:

I’ve always been very in tune with my health, considering a lot of my family have struggled with chronic disease my whole life. I like to tell people that I grew up thinking chronic disease was just normal because everybody in my family struggled with diabetes or high blood pressure. So it was just something that, hey, my grandma took medications for her sugars. That’s what she called it. My grandma was from the South. Her sugar was high, so she took medications. So I’m like, “All right.” I didn’t think that was a big deal. As I got older, I realized that is a big deal.

Corey Dion Lewis:

So I was always very in tune with and mindful of my genetics and my background in trying to stay healthy. So I took a health course at University of Iowa with Professor Michael Teague. Shout out to Dr. Teague. And I was in his office. I was like, “This psychology thing ain’t for me. I like it, but I don’t love it. I don’t know what to do.” And he was like, “Have you considered health coaching?” And like you, I was like, “What is that? I’ve never heard of it.” And he kind of explained it to me in… This was back 2007. 2007. And he explained it, where it was like, “Hey, you get to talk about health and talk with people.” So it was a mixture of counseling and talking about wellness. And I was like, “I’m in.” It just sounded… And maybe he was just hyping it up for me because the program had just got to the University of Iowa, so it really wasn’t even a program. Now, it’s the Human Health and Physiology Department. But back when I was there, it wasn’t even a department.

Corey Dion Lewis:

So I got my degree in interdepartmental studies with a specialization in health coaching. So I was doing motivational interviewing in one department. I was doing this in another department. I was just kind of all over the place on campus. And what health coaching is, it really is helping people stay accountable to their goals and giving them those behavior-change strategies that allow them to be sustainable. That’s all I do in a nutshell, right? I speak with people who want to make a change in their life, a health change. And I just talk them through it, and I make it easy for them to… I give them strategies. And it is really a lot of behavior-change structure in practice and is really kind of helping them go from, “I can’t change,” to “Maybe I can change,” to “I’m going to change,” to “I’ve changed.” Right? It’s just helping them through that process and utilizing a lot of motivational interviewing, positive psychology to get them to where they need to be.

Radha Velamuri:

So you started as a health coach.

Corey Dion Lewis:

Yes.

Radha Velamuri:

And then you decided to make your own podcast? Or did it sort of… Yeah. I just want to know like where the podcast happened too.

Corey Dion Lewis:

Yeah. Let us get there. So that was it. So University of Iowa Health Coach degree, boom. Right? So at the time, health coaches really were only in corporate-wellness spaces. So out of college, I worked at a nonprofit here in Des Moines called Orchard Place, where I was a treatment counselor for a few years, which was a great experience for me. Then I got my first job two years later as a health coach for a corporate-wellness company called Healthways. There is where I’ve worked with employees from all over the country to help them lose weight. I got extra training from Johns Hopkins in the science of weight loss and behavior change. We worked on the first online weight-loss program, called the Innergy Healthier Weight Program, that was based off of this Johns Hopkins research trial called the POWER Study. So they just took that POWER Study and turned it into a weight-loss program. And I worked on that at Healthways.

Corey Dion Lewis:

And then after my corporate-wellness kind of stint, I got into a clinical setting at Broadlawns Medical Center here in Des Moines, which is the Federally Qualified Health Center, which has been a great experience. So I’ve been doing this for… I’ve been here for five years. But where the podcast came, for the past four years now, I always said, “Having a podcast would be cool.” I had started getting into podcasts, and I’m like, “Maybe it’d be cool to have one.” And I just never pulled the trigger on it. I was like, “It’d be cool, but I don’t know what I’m going to talk about. I don’t know what I’m going to say.” And I was really insecure about it, and they were like, “Corey, you have a great radio voice. You just do it.” And I’m like, “Thanks for calling me ugly, but I’m not going to do it.” I’d be like, “Okay, I get it.”

Corey Dion Lewis:

Then the pandemic came. At Broadlawns, I see patients one on one, and we do what’s called shared medical visits. So the patient will come in. They’ll see me first for like 10 to 15 minutes, and we’ll go over some health education, ask them about their medications, all that stuff. And then they’ll see their provider. I do that, and I do, like I said, one on one, where I see patients. So when the pandemic was kind of first poking its head out, I get an email from my supervisor saying, “Hey, Corey, cancel your patients for this week. We don’t know what’s going on.” I get another email, “Hey, cancel your patients next week as well.” Then it was like, “Hey, just cancel all your patients until we know what’s going on.”

Corey Dion Lewis:

So I wasn’t seeing anybody for months. So through that time, I was like… I had a lot of time on my hands. So I wasn’t seeing patients. I was kind of helping throughout the hospital with screening patients coming in. But I was like, “Okay, I’ve had this idea of starting a podcast. What better time than now, where I’m not doing anything? I can kind of focus on it.” So I was talking to another friend of mine. He’s a health coach in New York, and I was saying, “Hey, man, I’m kind of toying around with starting this podcast. Like, for real this time.” And he’s like, “Well, hey, if you need a first guest, let me know. Let’s do it.” And I’m like, “All right, I’ll let you know.” And he was like, “Okay, when?”

Corey Dion Lewis:

So he was kind of holding me accountable to it. Like, “Okay, when are we doing it?” And I’m like, “Well, let’s do it Monday.” So I’m like, “Well, shoot.” So now I’ve got to a date and I’ve got a time. I didn’t have a name. I didn’t have a mic, nothing like that. But I was like, “I’ve got to do it now.” So I went and got a mic, figured out a catchy name, which was not The Healthy Project at the time. The name was SMART Talk, which is for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and right-on-time health and wellness conversations. But whenever I would tell people that I have a podcast and it was SMART Talk, they assumed that it was a finance podcast talking about money. Yeah. They would look at me and go, “But you’re a health coach. Why are you talking about money?” I’m like, “I’m not talking about money? Smart, smart goals, smart talk.” I had to explain it too much.

Corey Dion Lewis:

And I’m like, “Okay, let me just change the name up.” So I changed it to The Healthy Project, which fits a whole lot better with what my mission is and what my goal is with this whole thing now. So it’s worked out really, really well. Had that first episode May 4th, 2020. Been rocking ever since.

Anya Morozov:

Yeah, that’s awesome. I think we can probably relate to a lot of what you’re saying about not really knowing what it’s like to do a podcast, but then once you start, it turns out to not be quite as intimidating. So definitely, if anybody out there is thinking about it, just go for it. Just try it out.

Radha Velamuri:

Podcasters aren’t ugly. I just want to put that out there.

Anya Morozov:

Yeah, yeah. We’re all beautiful.

Corey Dion Lewis:

I know, right. I know. It’s like, “Don’t tell me I have a voice for radio. We all know what that means.” Right? But to your point, Anya, it was easy. I wouldn’t say… It was just having a conversation. What made it easy for me was a lot of my first guests, like the first five to 10, I knew already. We were friends, or we were connected on LinkedIn or something, or we had some kind of connection. I didn’t really plan those episodes. It was just like, “Hey, come on. Let’s just talk about a topic or something, and let’s just keep it moving.”

Corey Dion Lewis:

And if you go back to listen to those very first episodes, I didn’t edit anything. It was very raw. All the ums and ahs in the world are on those episodes. It’s really hard to listen to. Large, long breaks in people speaking, but it was fun. And I think that really helped me continue as I started getting more guests. I started reaching out to people I didn’t know, and then having to really structure questions. And once I started taking it seriously, having those firsts… Getting those firsts out of the way really, really helped build that confidence.

Anya Morozov:

Yeah. Let’s move on to another thing that you’re doing that seems like it started from the ground up and is really cool: your conference upcoming in November. What is My City My Health all about?

Corey Dion Lewis:

Yes. So My City My Health came up because now that I’m looking at The Healthy Project as more than just a podcast, we are a health education and media company, my question was, okay, what’s next? I have the podcast that’s doing really, really well, ranked 182 in the US in the medicine category. I’ve had great guests. This is going on really, really well. But what’s next after this?

Corey Dion Lewis:

And I was speaking to a friend of mine, shout out to Larry Twitty, who’s a great friend of mine here in Des Moines, and he was like, “Bro, you need a Healthy Project conference.” And it was something that I had kind of thought about was that next step already. So I was already super excited that he said that, because I was kind of thinking about a conference. But I just didn’t want to do a conference to do a conference. It had to mean something to me. So I sat on that for a while. And then I started thinking about a situation I had at Broadlawns, and it kind of just hit for me. So let me tell you the story.

Corey Dion Lewis:

Like I said, I see patients one on one for chronic care, or lifestyle management, chronic care, chronic disease management. And I was seeing a patient who was seeing me for… She was pre-diabetic and we were just doing some planning, some goal setting, kind of talking about nutrition. So her next A1C check was in three months. So we wanted to make sure that she was staying healthy and she didn’t go into that next phase, which was diabetes. And this was right around the time… This was where the pandemic was still strong, but it was loose enough to where I was able to see patients here and there back again.

Corey Dion Lewis:

And she was in my office and she was… Usually, she’s very engaged, but I could just kind of tell something was off. She wasn’t engaged. You could tell she just didn’t really want to be there. And I just, after our session, I was like, “So tell me, how’s the week been for you?” And she just kind of like, “My husband lost his job. I don’t know how we’re going to pay rent next month.” So there is this resource that I use. Anybody listening, you guys, definitely look it up. It’s called findhelp.org. So I went to this website, findhelp.org, and you put in your zip code, and it gives you all of the resources in your area where you can get assistance. So we typed in the zip code, and we found a nonprofit that helped people with rent relief and gave her that information. And she was able to get some relief from that, and it was great. She was so thankful, and it worked out for her. She got some relief. Her husband got back on his feet, got some work.

Corey Dion Lewis:

And then you can just kind of tell, now she was able to focus on her health, right? Because how are you going to focus on your health when you don’t know how you’re going to make rent or pay for food for your family? So from that experience, I realized, man, health is more than just me telling you to eat healthier. The community-based organizations do so much work to help the people in their communities stay healthy that it was only right to continue to do that and stay on that path on implementing more community-based resources into what I do.

Corey Dion Lewis:

So from that, I was like, “You know what? Health is a community effort.” And what I mean by that is, yes, I have a piece of that. You guys have a piece of that, but there’s also these people that we serve that they’re like, “Yes, Corey, I know I need to get healthier groceries, but I only get $50 a month in food stamps assistance.” Right? So they utilize these food pantries and things like that. If those food pantries weren’t there or these community-based organizations weren’t there to help with grocery relief or to help here or to help there, we’d be in some trouble. Right?

Corey Dion Lewis:

So when I came up with the idea for My City My Health, it was, okay, the people in Des Moines are getting not only their health needs from the hospitals, but they’re getting them from these community-based organizations as well. So how about we come together and talk about that and how we’re helping the people in these communities, right, and how we’re collaborating with community-based organizations?

Corey Dion Lewis:

So that’s where the idea came from. So it started as let’s just have a conversation about collaboration with community-based organizations in healthcare. Now we’re talking about racism in healthcare, prevention, mental wellness. It became this huge thing, which I’m super grateful for and I’m super excited about because, yeah, it starts with… It started with that idea of collaboration. But as we all know, there’s a lot to this. And the idea of this conference is to not… Yes, there’s going to be a lot of public-health professionals, healthcare professionals, but there’s also going to be people from the community there, because there’s no point in having a conversation about improving the care of the people if the people we’re talking about aren’t there listening to these conversations. And being able to go up to the chief medical officer of Broadlawns Medical Center and say, “This was my experience,” that is valuable to the healthcare community. In a safe place, say, “Hey, this was my experience,” and you can take that back and improve your practice or improve how you do things or improve your department and say, “Hey, these are these changes we can make because somebody said something in a safe space.”

Corey Dion Lewis:

Because as we know, or as you guys probably know as well, people in Black and brown communities are scared to death to go to the hospital, and they are dying because they won’t go to the hospital. You know what I mean? Because they’re not getting those services. So if somebody can go to this conference and say, “My experience at X hospital was this,” and that person could say, “Hey, I’m sorry that happened to you. These are the things that we’re doing to build that trust back,” how we talked about earlier, “to build that trust back into the healthcare system.” Because it’s not the community’s problem. Healthcare made that problem. So it’s healthcare’s responsibility to build that trust back up, to get people to come back who need the assistance the most.

Corey Dion Lewis:

Sorry, I went on a rant, but I’m super excited, and these are very meaningful and very necessary conversations we’re going to have at this conference. We’re already organizing the My City My Health Iowa City conference. We’re going to have one in Iowa City in 2023. Yeah. Some of the same topics and some other things. We’re going through that now. Shout out to Erin Litton. She’s a professor there at Iowa. So yeah, I’m super excited. We’re going to have great speakers. We’re going to have great discussions from the community-based organizations, healthcare. It’s just going to be a vibe. It’s just going to be a vibe. That’s all I can say.

Radha Velamuri:

Oh, that’s amazing. I’m from Des Moines, but I live in Iowa City. So I kind of, I guess, get the best of both worlds on that front. I can maybe take a peek at both conferences. But I just think it’s amazing that you’re valuing this communication between health provider and the people who are getting the healthcare so much, because I’ve just… If there’s one thing I’ve learned being a public-health student, is that not a lot of communication is actually happening. It needs to just be more efficient. It needs to be more… Some populations just don’t get communication.

Corey Dion Lewis:

Yeah. And that’s a very good point. That’s a very good point. And to kind of go with that, when… I called a patient for preventative services and was telling him, “Hey, you’re due for your colonoscopy.” This was a Black gentleman, older. I think he was 65 and older, right? And he was like, “No, I’m okay. I feel healthy now. If I go to the hospital, I’m probably going to… Something’s going to happen.” No one communicated to him why this was important. They just said, “He’s got a letter saying, ‘Hey, you’re due for your colonoscopy.'” Well, that’s not enough. People need to be educated, but in a respectful way. And sometimes if you don’t do that, it’s almost too late. They have it in their mind, “This is going to happen to me,” because of past experience and things of that nature.

Corey Dion Lewis:

But being able to communicate that like, “Hey, this is why we do this. This is why it’s important,” and just having that conversation. But at the same time, a lot of providers, I’ll give them this, they are busy, and maybe they don’t have a lot of time to really put that in there. That’s why care teams are a big thing now. And that’s why I’m at Broadlawns, so I can put in that 20-minute, 30-minute session with somebody to really explain to them and communicate why these things are important.

Anya Morozov:

Yeah. What has the process of actually getting the conference off the ground been like?

Corey Dion Lewis:

Knock on wood, it’s been really, really smooth. I think the reason why it’s gone really well is because it’s a necessary conversation at the right time. The conference is going to be held at Mainframe Studios here in Des Moines. I don’t know. Do you know Mainframe Studios? Have you heard of it?

Radha Velamuri:

I think I’ve heard of it, but I haven’t gone to anything there.

Corey Dion Lewis:

Yeah. It’s a nonprofit organization for artists. So a lot of artists have spaces there. It’s a really cool building, and they’re in the community where I serve. It’s a really cool building. So when I approached them about the idea I wanted to have and have it here, they were like, “Done. We’ll hold the spot for you. You don’t got to pay us a deposit.” And I’m like, “Oh, cool.”

Corey Dion Lewis:

And then because of my ties to Broadlawns and what I do within the community, everybody that I told about the idea was like, “We want to be a part of it,” because they know this is a needed conversation, and it’s a different conversation, considering what conferences or events you’ve been to in the area, right? A lot of the conferences that I’ve gone to is it’s in a hotel room or in a hotel conference room. No shade to that, but it’s just a provider or a doctor or somebody talking about the problem in the community, and then they leave. There’s just a bunch of nurses and people just there talking. Nothing really… There’s no real conversation.

Corey Dion Lewis:

But the difference with this conference and the fact that we’re having three or four panels talking about the issue, but also the solutions, with people from the community and other health professionals, it’s just a different vibe. And people are like, “Oh, this is going to be fun. It’s going to be fun, and I’m going to learn something. Right? And we’re going to talk about solutions.” So I think it’s just really good timing for this, and people have been super on board with wanting to be a part of the solution.

Radha Velamuri:

I want to go back to your website. Your conference has a website. So if anyone who’s listening wants more information about this conference, we’ll put the link to the website in the description. But the first thing you see is the phrase “Health is a community effort.”

Corey Dion Lewis:

Mm-hmm.

Radha Velamuri:

And I know we’ve talked a lot about community health, but is there anything you could summarize just with that sentence? Like, the most important takeaways you want our listeners to have?

Corey Dion Lewis:

Yes. The term “Health is a community effort” is the same as… Have you heard the term “It takes a village to raise a child” type of thing? That’s kind of the vibe I’m going for. Research tells us that… I forgot the percentage, but you don’t get all of your healthcare and prevention from the hospital. Everything happens outside of that. So logic tells me that everything you do outside of the hospital is going to affect your health a whole lot more, right? So what are you doing at home? How are we helping the people in their community? And that’s what I mean by it takes a community effort, because going back to that story from my patient, if it wasn’t for… I couldn’t have helped her with her pre-diabetes diagnosis or helping her improve her health if she was still stressed out about making rent. And I can’t pay her rent for her. I can’t help her with that. It took a community-based organization to say, “Hey, we have these funds. This is what we do. Let me help you with that.”

Corey Dion Lewis:

Okay. Now she’s not stressed. Okay, we got that taken care of. Now she can focus on the meal in front of her, or I’ve got to make sure I get my walk today. Right? That’s what I mean by health is a community effort. It takes all of us. It takes multiple community-based organizations. It takes health coaches. It takes your provider. It takes public-health professionals to say, “This is what we see as a whole. This is where the gaps are. These are where the concerns are. It takes us all to help make everyone healthy. It’s not one person. It’s not just your doctor. It’s just not your health coach. It’s everyone to make this thing called health for all, good health for all a reality.

Anya Morozov:

Very well put. So we’re going to wrap up with a question we try to ask all of our guests, and I’m really excited to hear what you say. What is one thing you thought you knew but were later wrong about?

Corey Dion Lewis:

Okay. I’ve been thinking a whole lot about this question because there’s a whole lot I thought I knew. So specific to health or just like in general?

Anya Morozov:

It’s wherever you want to take it.

Corey Dion Lewis:

Okay. I’m trying to think of the song. It was a song by, oh my God, by Michael Jackson. It’s one of those things where your whole life, you just mumble through the words. And then I was like, “Let me Google what he’s actually saying.” And I’m like, “That’s weird!” It was just uncomfortable for me. Like, oh my God, my whole life, and I thought I was saying it right, and I was so wrong. And I can’t think of it, so I won’t go with that one because I was like, “Man, what was that song?” So I’m not going to go there.

Corey Dion Lewis:

But if there was one thing that I was wrong about… So this is kind of funny, but kind of weird. I have a sister. Her name’s Brittany, from my dad’s side. And my whole life, I thought she was my cousin. But in fact, she was my sister on my dad’s side, and I just found out three years ago. So that was… I was like, “Hey, my cousin Brittany added me on Facebook.” My mom’s like, “That’s not your cousin. That’s your sister.” And I go, “Come again? What?” Yeah. So I have a new sister. Shout out to Brittany.

Anya Morozov:

Well, I think that’s the first time we’re going to hear that one on the show.

Radha Velamuri:

Yeah. After putting you on the spot like that, great job. Well, we can wrap up now. I mean, I want to thank you for coming onto From the Front Row. If any of our listeners want to hear more from Corey, his podcast, something we all encourage you to check out. And while you’re looking up his podcast, check out his conference. It’s all on a website that we’ll link down there. His conference, if you’re in the Des Moines area, we encourage you to check it out. I think it’ll be a wonderful event.

Corey Dion Lewis:

And it will be virtual. The link for the virtual has not gone on yet, but it will be a hybrid conference. So it’ll be virtual and in person.

Radha Velamuri:

Yeah. That’s amazing. So it’s accessible to anyone and everyone everywhere.

Corey Dion Lewis:

Absolutely.

Anya Morozov:

Yeah. And I’m super excited. I did not know you were planning an Iowa City one, but I’m definitely going to check that out.

Corey Dion Lewis:

Yeah. It kind of just happened. I got an email, and I’ve been really close with the Human Health and Physiology Department over the past couple years, just being on panels and talking about health coaching. And then I get an email from Erin. Like, “I’ve got an idea. How about we bring it to Iowa City?” And I’m like, “That’s cool,” because I already wanted to have the conversation. The goal is to have the conversation in every city in the country, because we could be talking about racism in healthcare in Iowa. But that conversation, though the topic may be the same, will be different in Kansas City, or it’ll be different in Minnesota or wherever, Omaha. So we can talk about the same things, but the conversations and the solutions are going to be different no matter where you’re at. So that’s always been the idea for My City My Health, to have it in different cities. So when she brought the idea of Iowa City, I was like, “Oh, I’m all for it. I’m all for it.” So yeah, we’re going to be doing it.

Radha Velamuri:

That’s it for our episode this week. Big thanks to Corey Dion Lewis for coming on with us today. This episode was hosted and written by Radha Velamuri and Anya Morozov, edited by Radha Velamuri and produced by Anya Morozov. You can learn more about the University of Iowa College of Public Health on Facebook. Our podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and SoundCloud. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to help support the podcast, please share it with your colleagues, friends, or anyone interested in public health. Have an idea for the show? You can reach us at CPH-GradAmbassador@uiowa.edu. This episode is brought to you by the University of Iowa College of Public Health. Until next week, stay healthy, stay curious, and take care.