20 Years Of Life – Public Health and Political Power

Infinite Earth Radio – weekly conversations with leaders building smarter, more sustainable, and equitable communities

Topic:

Urban Resilience Series – Addressing public health disparities

Guest & Organization:

Suzanne Bohan covered health and science for 12 years with the Bay Area News Group, a 650,000-circulation newspaper chain which includes the San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, and Oakland Tribune. She previously worked for the Sacramento Bee, and her writing has also been published in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Miami Herald, San Francisco Chronicle, and other newspapers nationwide.Bohan has won nearly 20 journalism awards, including the 2010 White House Correspondents’ Association Edgar A. Poe award for the series “Shortened Lives: Where You Live Matters” on why life expectancies vary so dramatically between nearby neighborhoods, and initiatives to shrink this unjust gap. Her earlier book, 50 Simple Ways to Live a Longer Life: Everyday Techniques from the Forefront of Science, won a National Health Information Award for health promotion/disease prevention. Bohan has a master’s degree in journalism from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree in biology from San Francisco State University. She interned at CNN and worked in radio, but decided to focus her career on print media. She lives in Northern California with her husband.In Twenty Years of Life, award-winning health journalist Suzanne Bohan exposes the disturbing flip side of the American dream: your health is largely determined by your zip code. The strain of living in a poor neighborhood, with sub-par schools, lack of parks, fear of violence, few to no healthy food options, and the stress of unpaid bills is literally taking years off people’s lives. Residents living in distressed communities die upwards of 20 years earlier than those living in wealthier neighborhoods often just miles away. But there is another way. In Twenty Years of Life, Bohan tells a success story that has resulted in the passage of more than 500 new policies and laws that are improving millions of resident’s lives.

Resources:

Suzanne Bohan’s website

Suzanne Bohan’s Amazon Author page

Twenty Years of Life – Why the Poor Die Earlier and How to Challenge Inequity

Island Press Urban Resilience Project

Download the Island Press APP! Learn more about the APP here, and find it on Google Play and Apple App Store!