Vulnerable Populations

Central to Burness’ commitment to social change is our work on issues affecting vulnerable populations. Since we began our work in 1986, Burness has assisted many nonprofits in their efforts to improve the lives of our country's most vulnerable.

Our own efforts have spanned a diverse set of issues. We have partnered with organizations working in school-based health care, welfare and foster care reform, homelessness, correctional healthcare, and elder care. We have supported advocacy around language barriers in health care delivery, and solutions to rampant inner city gun violence. We have disseminated research, including key indicators of health and poverty in the nation’s cities.

In recent years, Burness has:

  • Advocated for Cash and Counseling’s innovative approach to home health care, now adopted by 15 states, and available for all others to adopt.
  • Shed light on the dangerously dysfunctional state of health care in jails – and on possible solutions – with Community Oriented Correctional Health Services.
  • Helped tell stories of the success of CeaseFire’s groundbreaking new model for reducing urban gun violence.
  • Worked with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America to disseminate data showing that where Americans live, work, live and play can often have a greater impact on health than the health care they receive.

Confronting the dental health crisis

by Giovanna Frank-... on Tue, 07/27/2010 - 10:36am

Photo credit: Sam Pullara

Everywhere we look, we see stories about high-risk pools, insurance exchanges and the crisis facing the U.S. health system.  But there is another health crisis in America that few are talking about – oral health.

It’s an unfortunate reality: many Americans see oral health as unnecessary or cosmetic.  When money is tight, dental visits are often the first to go.  But oral health is critical to overall health.  Though largely ignored in national health reform, oral health is important, and for some – like 12-year old Deamonte Driver who died from an untreated tooth infection – it’s a matter of life and death. 

ShareThis

Rethinking the mission of medical schools

by Jemma Weymouth on Tue, 07/06/2010 - 5:10pm

A carving of a caduceus on the Howard University campus in Washington, DC. Howard is one of the universities ranked highly in the Fitzhugh Mullan study. (Credit: tacomabibelot).

Click here to listen to lead author Dr. Fitzhugh Mullan and Dr. John Prescott from the AAMC debate the study on WBUR, Boston’s NPR station.

As the U.S. girds for an influx of newly-insured patients under health reform, attention is shifting to whether medical schools are producing doctors that meet the country’s health care needs.  Helping to spark this debate is a recent study that ranks U.S. medical schools in a new, provocative way: on the extent to which they produce doctors who practice primary care, work in underserved areas, and are minorities.

By measuring schools against this “social mission” criteria, Dr. Fitzhugh Mullan of George Washington University and his colleagues (with support from the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, a Burness client) have created a new “best medical schools” list that turns traditional rankings on their head. Historically black schools Morehouse School of Medicine, Meharry Medical College and Howard University lead the pack (PDF), while more “prestigious” medical schools such as Vanderbilt, Duke, Stanford and Johns Hopkins fall into the bottom 20.

ShareThis

Global HIV-TB Briefing: Stemming the Deadly Twin Epidemics of HIV and Tuberculosis

in
Date: 
Thu, 05/20/2010 - 9:30am - 12:00pm
City: 
Washington, DC
Sponsor: 
Center for Global Health Policy
Event Type: 
Briefing

Center for Global Health Policy Logo
 

National Resource Center for Participant-Directed Services

in

Drawing on over a decade of experience with participant direction, the National Resource Center for Participant-Directed Services serves to assist all programs, regardless of funding source, to develop and improve their participant-directed options. The NRCPDS draws upon years of experience as a National Program Office for the Cash & Counseling project. For more information on our work with the Cash & Counseling project, please visit www.cashandcounseling.org.

www.bc.edu/schools/gssw/nrcpds/

World Health Organization

in

WHO is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.

In the 21st century, health is a shared responsibility, involving equitable access to essential care and collective defense against transnational threats.

www.who.int/en/

W.K. Kellogg Foundation

in

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 by breakfast cereal pioneer W.K. Kellogg, who defined its purpose as “…administering funds for the promotion of the welfare, comfort, health, education, feeding, clothing, sheltering and safeguarding of children and youth, directly or indirectly, without regard to sex, race, creed or nationality.…” To guide current and future trustees and staff, he said, “Use the money as you please so long as it promotes the health, happiness and well-being of children.”

Trust for America's Health

in

Trust for America's Health (TFAH) is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to saving lives by protecting the health of every community and working to make disease prevention a national priority.

From anthrax to asthma, from chemical terrorism to cancer, America is facing a crisis of epidemics.

As a nation, we are stuck in a "disease du jour" mentality, which means we lose sight of the bigger picture: building a public health defense that is strong enough to cover us from all points of attack – whether the threats are from a bio-terrorist or Mother Nature.

National Assembly on School-Based Health Care

in

All children and adolescents are healthy and achieving at their fullest potential.
Our mission is to improve the health status of children and youth by advancing and advocating for school-based health care.

www.nasbhc.org/site/c.jsJPKWPFJrH/b.2554077/k.BEE7/Home.htm

Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life

in

The Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life. A catalyst for growth and transformation, a global resource to improve care for those at life’s end.

The mission of the Institute is to create and promote the growth of knowledge and to encourage the application of that knowledge in caring for the whole person at life’s end.

www.iceol.duke.edu/index.html

Advancing Excellence in America's Nursing Homes

in

The Campaign works closely with other national nursing home quality initiatives to streamline efforts and to prevent duplication of efforts. National quality initiatives such as Quality First, the Nursing Home Quality Initiative, the Culture Change movement, the Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) 9th Scope of Work complement one another. Working with one initiative will usually strengthen results and outcomes of the other.

www.nhqualitycampaign.org