2024 Schedule

Traditional views of healthcare have built the environment we live in—and reinforced systemic inequities and poor health outcomes. Is our own thinking limiting our ability to truly transform community-level conditions that catalyze well-being? What cross-sector investments and strategies are required to rebuild communities through shifting power, voice and interest for community-led systemic solut...

In an ailing world, so many people are eager to contribute to their communities and connect with their neighbors. Hear stories of grassroots efforts to improve community health that draw on local talent to meet local needs—grandmothers delivering mental health counseling, volunteers teaching children about healthy food, and artists using murals to strengthen neighborhoods. All build on the recogni...

At the edge of innovation, government initiatives like the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) are pursuing moonshots, venture capitalists are looking for impact and profits in the health space, and dedicated researchers are confronting diseases such as cancer in novel ways. All are eager to accelerate high-value, scalable breakthroughs that fill treatment gaps and could finally...

The mission of healthcare is to meet the needs of individual patients while public health is driven by a commitment to the health of broad populations. For too long, the two fields have operated largely in parallel, with only weak ties to connect them. Although the COVID-19 pandemic illustrated the urgency of building bridges, we are now at risk of pandemic amnesia. It is time to meet the country’...

Managing disease is getting personal. With the genomic revolution upon us, we now understand that many diseases don't always follow the same predictable course and personalized treatments often work best. The recognition that disease patterns are greatly influenced by individual genetic makeup, combined with advances in technology and gene therapy, are driving a paradigm shift in medicine. Genomic...

The health benefits of a nutritious diet are well-established, but just telling people to eat more plant-based foods and less unhealthy fat isn’t enough to reduce the toll of chronic diseases. A growing body of research supports a much more systematic approach, woven into the fabric of healthcare, to leverage the medicinal power of food. Medically tailored meals designed to address specific diagno...

In polite conversation, we don’t share much information about our gastrointestinal tract or daily bathroom rituals but gut health is crucial to overall wellbeing. Knowledge of the microbiome, which consists of microorganisms that are especially prevalent in the intestines, reveals how inextricably the gut is linked to brain health, inflammation, and the immune system. Learning about those connecti...