Interdisciplinary Research Leaders
Building a Culture of Health together
Announcing the 2019 IRL Teams!
These 15 teams of researchers and community leaders will spend the next three years (2019-2022) working together to explore critical issues in their home communities and apply findings in real time to create healthier and more equitable policies and places to live. Meet the 2019 IRL teams…
We barreled across the high desert, five people to a car, training and debriefing as we drove, scouring data and reading other state plans in hotel rooms late at night, and stopping wherever we could for more coffee and chocolate. We did this because we care, and we believe that better policy is informed by local knowledge and that we train the next generation of interdisciplinary participatory researchers through mentoring and modeling. The students did it for the thrill of being engaged in something that matters.
As I reflect on our work using structured dialogue in Guilford County, NC, I become a witness to something happening in Next Generation Academy (NGA). Black parents begin to release some of the emotional burdens they retain from a long history of navigating the U.S. public education system.
Three years ago, the first cohort of Interdisciplinary Research Leaders (IRL) fellows embarked on a transformative personal and professional journey, stretching beyond their daily work and building leadership skills to drive social change. This year, as they become the program’s first graduates and alumni, we are celebrating all they have learned and the impact they have had in their communities.
This special issue—Unlocking Opportunities to Create a Culture of Health in Housing: Lessons from Interdisciplinary, Community-Engaged Research Teams—explores connections between housing and health, highlighting the research of sev
Are you ready for the big dance?
Getting to the big dance requires an effective team that attends to team-building and process. Building a winning basketball team takes the right coaching, players who learn to work well with each other, the fortitude to get through the season even with injuries, and maybe a little luck! Similarly, building a winning IRL team takes mentoring, some persistence, and teammates with different but complementary expertise, and knowledge of systems that lead to building a culture of health.
