The Wooden Teeth Show

Three researchers are the first people to study how living in fear changes our health. How do you measure such a thing? What contributes to a person’s fears? What’s the political climate’s affect on fear, especially with constant threats of mass deportation and repeatedly stoked fears of crime? Another dispatch from the American Public Health Association’s annual conference, we join Marie-Claude Couture, Dellanira Garcia, and Erin Grinshteyn of the University of San Francisco to examine how fear is damaging our chances at healthy lives. With American life expectancy declining for the third straight year and substance use causing much of the decline, join our critical conversation to find out how fear is ratcheting up substance use rates and hurting our health in many other ways.

From a giant (echoey) conference room at the American Public Health Association’s annual conference, Jake sits down with Linda Blount, President and CEO of the Black Women’s Health Imperative. Linda explains BWHI’s mission of reducing health disparities for Black women and fills us in on what we can learn from Black women about the public’s health. She’s got fascinating thoughts as well on how we sell public health like companies sell products, that is, how we make people want better health. Linda also joins in to bust some health myths – you know we love that – and brings the politics as well. With Black women more-or-less always saving the electoral chances of Democratic candidates, why aren’t those Democrats delivering for Black women? And what can we do about it?

Transportation Alternatives advocates for New York City’s streets to be safer for pedestrians and cyclists. They’ve got to navigate both the difficult physical and political terrain in their quest to make the city safe for residents who want to commute by walking and biking. How do you organize to move elected officials? How do you change the characterization of injuries and deaths from “accidents” into “traffic violence?” Transportation Alternatives Director of Advocacy Thomas Devito joins us to chat about the future of active transportation in the country’s biggest city.

Last night, Democrats seized control of the House of Representatives after a campaign waged on the issue of health care and as a check on President Trump. With midterm-induced change ringing in our head, we check in with Rich Pelletier, who was Bernie Sanders’s National Field Director. What’s next for Bernie? How did Bernie manage to so substantially outperform expectations? What do voters really want in the next presidential candidate?

Hey! It’s officially time for the Wooden Teeth to start chattering! We’re here to bust some myths, find out where your health collides with politics, laugh, and take some action. For our inaugural episode, we’ve got Brad Woodhouse in Washington, DC, who runs Protect Our Care, the organization fighting to defend the Affordable Care Act. And Brad’s magnificent Carolina accent. We’ve got that too.