Talk

The Geography of Health Outcomes

Thursday June 23, 14:55, Alternative Stage GNO

Beth Blauer, Associate Vice Provost for Public Sector Innovation, Johns Hopkins University / Johns Hopkins University

How much of a role does the area where one is born play later in life? What does it mean for one's overall health outcomes from the moment they come into the world? How does it affect each person's life expectancy?

Beth Blauer, Associate Vice Provost for Public Sector Innovation at Johns Hopkins University has dedicated her career to trying to improve people's lives by bringing data into governments’ decision-making processes.

Using her hometown of Baltimore as a reference point, she emphasized that "the place you are born is one of the number one indicators of how the trajectory of your life will go," and went on to say that "in some parts of the city, especially where black families live, you are born in poverty, you live in poverty, you die in poverty."

Speaking of the wealth in Baltimore, she said it is geographically concentrated in the city’s core, where the power centers are protecting the infrastructure that keeps on propagating systemic shortcomings.

She noted that these are problems that affect the entire planet, every country, city, and neighborhood, and urged the public to think about where they live, which areas they avoid, and where they feel most comfortable.

"To resolve these issues, political will is needed. When we have such explicit data, we can make the right decisions and find solutions," she concluded to an audience that burst into applause in the impressive venue of the Greek National Opera.