Recorded at the 2025 Breakthrough Health Film Festival at Tulane, this episode is the post screening conversation for the docuseries, “The Skin You’re In”, with writer and executive producer, Thomas LaVeist. The film explores why Black Americans in the United States experience poorer health outcomes and shorter lifespans compared to other ethnic groups. The docuseries specifically highlights Brownsville in Brooklyn, New York, LaVeist’s childhood neighborhood.  

Moderated by Gian Smith, poet, performer, and Festival Director for the Black Film Festival of New Orleans, this conversation delves into the making of the film and examines the intricate intersections of history, policy, and personal narratives that shape health outcomes today.  

Video version of post screening conversation.  

Transcript

In this episode we speak to Dr. Melody Goodman, Interim Dean, Professor of Biostatistics, Director, Center for Anti-racism, Social Justice & Public Health, New York University. We cover her childhood living in Jamaica Queens, New York, and her unconventional career journey that led her to biostatistics and academia. We also discuss the importance of mentorship and her approach to mentoring young scholars of color, as well as her extensive work in measuring how engaged community members feel they are in the research process, and training in the basics of research to find areas of disruption through community life experiences.
 
Host:  Thomas LaVeist, PhD, Dean and Weatherhead Presidential Chair in Health Equity, Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Principal Investigator, Partners for Advancing Health Equity, Executive Producer and Writer, “The Skin You’re In” documentary
 
Guest:  Melody Goodman, PhD, Interim Dean, Professor of Biostatistics, Director, Center for Anti-racism, Social Justice & Public Health, New York University
 
Papers Discussed Construct Validation of the Research Engagement Tool (REST) Racial/Ethnic Diversity in Academic Public Health: 20 Year Update Increasing Research Literacy in Minority Communities: CARES Fellows Training Program

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Video Version

In this episode, we speak to Dr. Harold “Woody” Neighbors, Senior Advisor for public health research and Research Professor with Tulane’s School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, about his life experiences that led him to study the intersection of socio-political determinants and behavioral response in producing racial disparities in disease. We discuss several aspects of his work, including the concept of goal-striving stress, its effects, and racial differences in mental health as well as his experience with community-based participatory research.

Bio: https://sph.tulane.edu/sbps/harold-neighbors

Papers discussed in this episode:
Neighbors (1984) The use of informal and formal help-Four patterns of illness behavior American J of Comm Psychol.pdf

Neighbors (1995) From Personal Empowerment to Community Action.pdf

Neighbors (2003) Race and DSM Diagnosis-Clinical Judgment JHSB.pdf

Neighbors (2011) Goal Striving and Race in Mental Health - Race and Social Problems.pdf

Neighbors (2022) Blame and Responsibility in Health Equity Social Science and Medicine.pdf

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Podcast Episode Video

In this episode, we speak with Kyriakos (Kokos) Markides, PhD, the Annie and John Gnitzinger Distinguished Professor of Aging and Professor at the School of Public and Population Health at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and Editor of the Journal of Aging and Health. We discuss his immigration to the United States from Cyprus as a child, and how his life journey led him to the study of aging and health issues in the Mexican American population as well as his development of the hypothesis, the “Hispanic Epidemiological Paradox.”

Full bio: https://www.utmb.edu/spph/kyriakos-s-markides-phd

Article and Paper discussed in this episode:

The Health of Hispanics in the Southwestern United States: an Epidemiologic Paradox KYRIAKOS S.
MARKIDES, PhD, JEANNINE COREIL, PhD , Public Health Reports, May-June 1986, Vol 101

The Healthy Immigrant Effect and Aging in the United States and Other Western Countries Kyriakos S.
Markides, PhD and Sunshine Rote, The Gerontological Society of America 2018

Transcript

In this episode we speak with Louis Sullivan, M.D., former Secretary of Health and Human Services under President George H.W. Bush, and the founding dean and director of the School of Medicine at Morehouse College. We discuss defining moments in his life and how they influenced his pursuit of a career in medicine, his establishment of institutions to improve opportunities for historically
underrepresented communities, and his time as Health and Human Services Secretary, where he led several efforts to reduce health inequities. He is also author of several books, including We'll Fight it Out Here: America’s Black Health Professionals and the Legislative Battleground. The Story of the Association of Minority Health Professions Schools.


Full biography: https://pemsm.com/enter/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/LWS-Bio-2021.pdf

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