DWArticulated

05/05/2026

At long last…the Good Squishee machine is up and running! Check out the FIRST full episode of the Good Squishee podcast - “Opening Shots” - on Apple, Spotify, Podcast Index and Podcast Addict (coming soon to MORE platforms)! And goodsquishee.com, of course! Enjoy! -DW

04/12/2026

Well, we’ve reached the end of National Public Health Week 2026, and instead of writing a post, I recorded something instead.

I watch a lot of TV, too – maybe too much TV - so I created a podcast that talks about public health and pop culture. It’s called Good Squishee, which will debut with regular episodes starting Sunday, April 19.

Check out a clip of the premiere episode at goodsquishee.com, currently part of the DWArticulated website (for now) - click on the navigation bar at the top for the Good Squishee site.

If you like it, leave your email address in the comments - and stay tuned for subscription information coming this week.

Have a great week – and Stay Safe!

-DW

www.goodsquishee.com

Empowering organizations to transform their communities with clear and impactful public health solutions.

04/11/2026

(tl;dr – I’m not new to this, I’m true to this…)

Why do I do it? Why public health?

Well, like many of us in the field, I grew up wanting to be a doctor. I was always fascinated by health care, and I knew I wanted to grow up and do something that made a difference in the world; of course, at the time, all I knew was “be a doctor or a nurse” – not knowing that there was an entire multidisciplinary system of health care. I was also curious about health disparities, though I had no idea of what “health disparities” meant – all I knew was that there were huge, ginormous hospitals on my side of town (Cleveland Clinic and University Hospital of Cleveland), yet the people that lived around those institutions were still plagued with poor health, and everyone had very inadequate health care coverage, if any at all; lots of people (self-included) spent time in emergency rooms and underfunded, community health clinics where the staff were caring and well-meaning but definitely overworked and lacking major resources. My curiosity always centered on how to ensure everyone received the quality health care that the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospital always boasted about but never seemed to be available to their East Side neighbors.

So off to Northwestern I went, and promptly declared myself as pre-med; and shortly thereafter landed on academic probation because I couldn’t get through the basic chemistry and biology courses (first and only F grade EVER); at the same time, I did better in my sociology and history courses as I dived into the history of medical care in the U.S., and discovered the historical inequalities of medical education (thanks, Flexner Report of 1910!) and the outrage of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment of 1932-1972. I was fortunate enough to spend Summer 1993 working at the UCLA School of Nursing, where I discovered UCLA’s School of Public Health, and figured out EXACTLY what I wanted to do: advocate for improved and equitable health care among disadvantaged populations. When I returned to Northwestern for my last 2 years, my GPA skyrocketed and remained high thanks to this renewed focus.

Of course, as great as the MPH is, I wanted to broaden my focus to policy analysis and development – and after years of debating between medical school, law school and a doctorate (still on the table, btw), I opted to pair my MPH with a Master of Public Administration from Columbia, coupling my public health skill set with the public administration and policy analysis tools that would elevate my community-based participatory research and planning efforts. Together, these degrees have allowed me to explore how public health policies are implemented in communities, how communities can in turn advocate for public health policies that truly work for all.

…and to hurry up and establish Universal Health Care in the U.S., because REALLY… what are we doing y’all?!?

Last Public Health 2026 Week post tomorrow. Stay safe!

-DW

04/10/2026

(tl;dr – the work doesn’t stop just because political forces try to stop it)

I was disappointed to read the report from the NYC Health Department, stating that unintended pregnancy rates have been increasing over the last couple of years after a steady 20+year decline between 2000-2021. I was fortunate to part of the team that implemented both multi-level teen pregnancy prevention strategies in the South Bronx between 2011 and 2016, leading to a 43% decrease alone over that 5-year period (76% overall between 2000-2021), as well as expansion of the intervention model in other high-need areas of the city. I knew when I left DOHMH in early 2016 that, even with minor budget cuts, the efforts would be sustained overall. However, Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, allowing for the current Federal Administration and analogous cultural shifts to fast-track policies and perceptions that block women’s access to preventive reproductive health care and services, in the US and worldwide – and though the NYC Health Department’s efforts are still ongoing, their sustained success may be in peril.
I saw political interference in public health up close in 1996 as a summer intern at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta: during a protracted funding battle in Congress – where they wielded the power of the “line item veto” – one of the only budget items that they managed to remove was the $2.6million that was earmarked for gun violence prevention research, and passed the Dickey Amendment, which mandated the CDC could not earmark ANY funds that would be used to advocate or promote gun control. By the time the Dickey Amendment was eliminated in 2018, gun violence has become a leading cause of death and injury in the US, with over 47,000 people dying of gun violence in the year 2023. Incidentally, there were over 85 mass shootings in the US in the 20 years that the Dickey Amendment was in effect; there have been over 45 more in the last eight years alone.

Even with all of the efforts to use politics to impede forward movement in public health – whether it’s reproductive health, gun violence, vaccines, lack of access to grocery stores – we can still make progress. Even in these uncertain times, we can share and implement our best practices, we can partner with our communities to continue addressing health disparities, we can collaborate with our colleagues in other disciplines to build more holistic public health strategies, we can sit at the head of policymakers’ tables to rebuild our weakened system alongside our public health champions – and create new ones along the way. Even as political fortunes change, the importance of public health still persists – and we’re gonna keep doing the work regardless. It’s hard work – but it’s GOOD work.

Check out the NYC Health Department Report: https://lnkd.in/eq7m6Gum

Thanks for your attention. And in the spirit of Public Health Week 2026…Stay Safe this weekend!

-DW

This link will take you to a page that’s not on LinkedIn

04/09/2026

(tl;dr – showing you the money is easy: doing the work to get it isn’t as hard as you think)

One of the most common requests I’ve gotten over the years is “find me some grants.” Usually my follow-up question is “what exactly are you doing, and what’s your plan to do it?”

A large majority of the public health work I’ve done throughout my career has been grant-funded, mainly through government (federal, state and city) funding sources – in fact, my very first public health-related internship at Northwestern was literally going through foundation encyclopedias and searching for grant funding for an upstart clinic in Chicago. So naturally, I’ve become quite experienced in obtaining and sustaining large, multi-year funding.

But I’ve realized that my value hasn’t been just in getting millions of dollars in grant funding; that’s actually the easiest part of the process. The most valuable part of the process is planning how to get it – and if you take the time do it right, you’ll have the opportunity to pick the funding source – and in some cases, more than one – that is most beneficial to you and your organization in the long run.

It’s one thing to say that you want to start a public health program – and I appreciate that, because we need as many effective interventions out there as we can get – but it’s another thing to start an impactful public health program. What do you want to do? Who do you want to help? Where are you doing it? Who’s helping you do it? Also, what proof do you have that the people who you’re trying to help actually need – or WANT – the help you’re trying to provide? Who’s done this work before – and did it work? Most importantly: why do YOU want to do it, why are YOU the one to do it, and HOW do you expect to do it - especially if you don’t have substantial experience?

I’ve learned in my experience that taking the painstaking, sometimes super-duper long process of answering these (and many other) questions beforehand, and THEN creating a cohesive, logical plan and flexible funding agenda for your program is the most effective way to find the funding you need for impactful programming. It will absolutely get you the funding you’re seeking, even if your proposals have been previously denied…and if you’re really on top of everything, the funding can find YOU! Funding may come and go…but a well-planned and sustainable public health intervention may still endure.

Please comment below with your email address to join my email list for more insights like this, along with upcoming events and special announcements. Also, stop by my ever-evolving website at dwarticulated.com!

Thanks for your attention. And in the spirit of Public Health Week 2026…Stay Safe!

-DW

Empowering organizations to transform their communities with clear and impactful public health solutions.

04/08/2026

(CW:LONG POST…tl;dr – Community-Based Participatory Research really is everything. 🥰 )

By the time I graduated with my MPH in Community Health Sciences in 1997, all of the public health theoretical and practical foundations I learned actually started to click for me. But, I still wanted to do meaningful community-based public health work that made an immediate and direct impact. For a couple of years, I worked in a number of nonprofit organizations between Los Angeles and NYC that weren’t necessarily in public health, but definitely public health-adjacent focused on administration and management tasks.

Then, right after 9/11, I had an informational interview that changed everything for me. I met with a faculty member at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health that was running a maternal child health program based within a paradigm published in 1998 called COMMUNITY-BASED PARTICIPATORY RESEARCH (CBPR), a collaborative approach between academic centers and community members and organizations that work together to share planning, evaluation and management responsibilities in order to ensure the lasting success of public health initiatives. CBPR creates solutions based on public health theoretical foundations alongside communities’ collective strengths and wisdom, while increasing community members’ capacity to take ownership of successful public health programs and collective efforts in the long-run.

She had me at “community-based” – and I decided then and there that CBPR would be my public health specialty moving forward. I ended up spending the next 8 years working within that project, and another 5 years leading a CBPR-heavy project at the NYC Health Department that led to a significant reduction in unintended teen pregnancy, with important lessons learned from our activities still being used to shape policies and programming today.

One thing about CBPR: everyone involved has to have the capacity to pull it off successfully. Communities need to build their capacity to participate in public health initiatives and advocacy, for sure; many collaborators provide that training as part of their program plan. But MORE importantly, organizations and institutions need to be willing to accept community-based participation within their programmatic, policy, and research initiatives; therefore, organizations need to create a plan for rich, in-depth, meaningful community engagement – not just having a couple of nice luncheons and a few participants at our highly-publicized events, either. Consider a few focus groups and interviews to get a sense of what your target community needs, and haven’t gotten. By all means, start a Community Advisory Board to help guide your activities and planning. CBPR does take a lot longer than you’d want it to take – but your public health initiative will be all the more sustainable for it.

Day 3 post done! More coming tomorrow! Thanks for your attention. In the spirit of Public Health Week 2026…Stay Safe!

-DW

04/08/2026

(tl;dr – none of the public health foundations made sense – until they did.)

It’s Day 2 of Public Health Week 2026, and I still had some more teaching to do today. Among the theories, concepts and practice tools I teach is PRECEDE-PROCEED, one of the bedrock planning tools taught in public health programs for the past several decades. PRECEDE-PROCEED prescribes a series of data reviews and needs assessments to ensure that the intervention is evidence-based and appropriate for the population being reached. I was learning all of this with my other core public health courses during Public Health 1996 – and to be honest…

None of it made a bit of sense back then. I was so distracted and bored, and kept thinking, “why can’t we get to the GOOD part and go out there and do something?”

Ah, young and blissfully oblivious early-20-something me... I didn’t know was that creating the evidence-base for those public health policies and program that actually do something IS the good part!

What I didn’t understand back then is that it is absolutely important to have a strong evidence base that supports why you’re creating and/or advocating for a public health program and policy in the first place! There has to be a documented need based on epidemiological and census data, a review of (un) available community resources, and a careful analysis of the demographic, economic, political, environmental, and social factors that contribute to negative health outcomes. Furthermore, it’s vital to understand root causes that contribute to these issues (and no – it’s not just about “willpower” and “diet and exercise”).

Organizations already collect information – like, the number of people participating in an event, or customer satisfaction surveys – that can review and analyze to guide how they can plan activities that will make an impact. Fortunately, we can now use our phones to access a lot of epidemiological and census data that are (still) available online, along with peer-reviewed articles that detail successful interventions and how they were developed. A strong evidence base, complete with accurate data and thorough needs assessments, actually can increase the chances of public health strategies being impactful and sustainable in the long run - because the goals, objectives, and activities are rooted in facts and proven public health theory, coupled with documented community need.

Looking back, I guess I was paying attention after all!

Tomorrow I’ll talk about something that was created AFTER I graduated from UCLA that really brought it all together.

In the meantime, please comment below with your email address to join my email list for upcoming events and special announcements – and if you haven’t received a confirmation email, you’ll receive it soon!

And if you already haven’t, please visit my website – dwarticulated.com.

Thanks for your attention. And in the spirit of Public Health Week 2026…Stay Safe!

-DW

Empowering organizations to transform their communities with clear and impactful public health solutions.

04/06/2026

(CW: LONG POST…tl;dr: DWArticulated is back!)

First things first: Shout out to my MPH Alma Mater, UCLA, for winning the Women’s Basketball Championship!!

Now…HAPPY PUBLIC HEALTH WEEK!!

I know that it’s been a while since I posted (and I’m posting this Facebook AND LinkedIn simultaneously), but I figured that with this being Public Health Week *AND* the 7th anniversary week of DWArticulated, why not start posting again now!?

I’m spending the first day of Public Health Week 2026 doing something that I thought was inconceivable 30 years ago when I was a 1st year MPH student at UCLA:

Teaching.

For the last 5 years, Monday has been my primary day to teach public health – first at the NYU School of Global Public Health, then (and now) at the SUNY Downstate School of Public Health. Back in 1996, I never thought it would have been possible: first because I was starting to waver about the MPH in the first place – after all, I really wanted to eventually get an MD. Also, back then, I knew I’d never want to teach, because, ME? TEACH? That’s unpossible!

Turns out? This is my most favorite job EVER. Every time I teach public health content, I always find new ways to contextualize our public health foundations and my past public health experiences with what’s going on today – and consider how we need to critically rethink them in order to rebuild our public health infrastructure moving forward. More than just the satisfaction my students relating to the content in an enlightening way, the ability for ME to relate those same lessons learned over the last 30 years ago keeps me engaged and optimistic for the future of public health.

As a result, I have rethought the way I am moving forward with DWArticulated and my consulting business, and restructuring my services around one primary concept:

Teaching.

I want to bring businesses and community organizations together with public health professionals in rebuilding this super-fractured US public health system. In the spirit of community-based participatory research and planning, I truly believe that we can ALL play a part in rebuilding and strengthening the public health system – we just have to know HOW we can be most effective. And we can ALL be effective in our own way.

So, I’m going to spend this week re-entering this social media space talking about my public health lessons learned – mainly so that I can get back into regularly posting again, and that I can keep you all posted on what I have planned for the next few months. I’m committing to one post every day starting today through Sunday, April 12 (yes – even Sunday).

In the meantime, please comment below with your email address to join my email list for upcoming events and special announcements. Also, visit my ever-evolving website at dwarticulated.com!

Thanks for your attention. And in the spirit of Public Health Week 2026…Stay Safe!

-DW

Empowering organizations to transform their communities with clear and impactful public health solutions.

08/06/2025

With Congress on recess this month, now is an ideal time to reach out and advocate for public health. APHA’s campaign offers helpful pointers on how to reach out to decisionmakers, as well as other ways to advocate. Read more about how you can support public health: http://publichealthnewswire.org/?p=apha-speak-for-health-2025

05/07/2025

May 6th? Already?!? Welp - another end of the school year, another dynamic group of public health professionals ready to be unleashed upon the world…honored to be a part of another collective journey! Now to celebrate (well for me: grade, then celebrate)!! Congrats, Public Health Masters in the Class of 2025!!