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Dan Loney: Well, the Wharton School is
working in conjunction with Penn Medicine on a wellness
empowerment project. It's
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designed to provide a broad
range of wellness resources to our community here in and around
the Penn campus in the West
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Philadelphia section of
Philadelphia. Part of that discussion will include focusing
on finance and financial
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education to help members of the
community. We're joined here in studio today by Renita Miller,
who is Chief Diversity Equity
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and Inclusion Officer here at
the Wharton School, and also Dr. Joshua Levine, who is Chief of
the Division of Neurocritical
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Care at Penn Medicine. Great to
have you both with us today. Thanks for your time.
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Thank you. I guess let's— this is such a
unique idea to bring forward. Josh, let's start with you and
how this really came about in
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the first place. Well, you know, it came about a
couple of years ago when I was serving, and still serve, as the
Chair of the Neurology
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Department's Community and
Social Action Committee, or CASA. And this is a group of
neurologists who are really
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passionate about community
service. And we had lots of meetings where we were dreaming
both big and small, and had a
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lot of passion. And it quickly
became clear to us that for some of our more ambitious projects,
we needed to— a source of funding
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for it. And we pursued
traditional ways of obtaining funding within the university
and the medical system, but
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really found that people were
having trouble wrapping their heads around raising funds for
community outreach. And so we
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racked our brains. We actually
had a retreat, and we had an epiphany that the financial
experts on campus— and perhaps in
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the world— are sitting in our
backyard, at the Wharton School. And so I reached out to Nancy
Rothbard at Wharton, Professor
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of Management and Deputy Dean,
and I really just sort of cold- called her and said, "Hey, this
is who I am, and this is what my
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idea is, would you be willing to
chat with me and guide me?" And she was very gracious, and said
yes. And we sat down together,
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and she was excited by what we
talked about. And she pointed me to the then-new Chief Diversity
Officer, who's sitting with me
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here in the studio, Renita, and
to Ken Shropshire, who is serving as Senior Advisor to the
Dean's Office in the area of
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equity and opportunity. And once
we met, I think it was just meant to be. We were both very
excited about the potential for
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collaboration, passionate about
the same sorts of things, and decided to try out a
collaboration by partnering on
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pulling off the first community
fair event, which occurred around Juneteenth of last year.
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- Yeah. And, yeah. And to Josh's
point, we were super excited about the opportunity to
collaborate. And when we had
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that first conversation, it
really was about, how could we both, in our respective schools,
contribute to a meaningful
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conversation and bring those
resources and expertise to the community? And from that, the
Wellness Summit was born. And
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then we eventually, now in our
second year, evolved into the Wellness Empowerment Project.
Because it is fully encompassing
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as it relates to financial and
health, equity and wellness. - What I found interesting— and
this is actually something we
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talked about before we even
started doing this, is, this is unique partnership when you
think about the entities that
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are within kind of university
framework. Obviously, medicine and finance coming together, but
not thinking about research that
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would be done within the
university. But this is designed, really, for looking at
the community in and around the
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university itself. Absolutely, and I think to
Josh's point, one of the things
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that we recognize is that we
both have a heart for service, and we have a heart for serving
in our community. And we are
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like— we are at these amazing
institutions that have these incredible resources that the
community can benefit from. And—
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and Wharton has a history of
community engagement around financial literacy. And so what
we were doing was bringing this
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to a new sort of area as it
relates to the Wellness Empowerment Project, and saying,
you know, how can we bridge
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this— this economic gap, in
many— in many ways. - I think at times, maybe we don't
even necessarily associate— when
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we think about wellness, we're
obviously thinking about our physical well being, maybe our
mental well being.
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We don't think about the
connection that financial components may have in terms of
getting to that— that end point.
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- Yeah, you know, they're
really inextricably linked together. And you know, Penn
basically sits in an area that
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has a low socioeconomic status
population. And it's a population that experiences many
health inequities, and these are
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linked to worse health outcomes.
And there's abundant research showing that socioeconomic
status has a really profound
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impact on health outcomes across
the lifespan. And, you know, research consistently shows that
lower socioeconomic status is
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associated with poorer health,
increased mortality. And there's this health-wealth gradient.
Which basically means as wealth
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increases, health improves. And
so we don't see these as really separate. They're all part of
holistic wellness. I think in
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order to be well, you have to be
physically and mentally well and financially well, and they're
all linked together. And so we
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saw this as a nat— a natural
partnership. - Yeah, we were really excited about just
this unique sort of union and
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collaboration, because
oftentimes these conversations are happening separately. And so
this was an opportunity to say
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these things are so— to the point
that Josh made— inextricably linked. And so how can we have
that conversation together
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within, and sort of our
community, and working in partnership with them to to have
the conversation so that those
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linkages are— are salient, and
the resources are— are prominent and accessible?
- Well,
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I think it's interesting because
you think about physical, mental well being. - Yeah.
And the component of,
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in many instances, for many people, how financial
issues do play a role towards the negative side of a person's
health.
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Yeah, you know, I think that if—
if you are, you know, in a lower socioeconomic bracket, you have
an increased risk of chronic
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diseases like heart disease,
diabetes, cancer. You have a higher mortality rate and a
shorter life expectancy. For
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mental health, there are higher
rates of depression and anxiety and, believe it or not, a
greater risk of Alzheimer's
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disease. And that's why at our
health summit, our Wellness Fair, we're going to be
highlighting various medical
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conditions that are particularly
relevant to our local community, like Alzheimer's disease,
traumatic brain injury and other
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things that preferentially
affect communities that have lower socioeconomic status. And
I think that socioeconomic
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status dictates, in large part,
access to health care. There are more barriers to accessing care,
less preventative services, and
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lower wage workers have less
access to health insurance, paid time off, flexibility. And so I
think all of these things
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contribute to worse health
outcomes. -Well, and I think, Renita, there's an even
larger discussion going on right
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now about the component of
financial literacy and how it can help build stronger
communities. When you think
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about, you know, some areas here
in Philadelphia or other countries, other cities as well,
the need for better financial
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literacy, financial education, is
vital to be able to build your cities up as you're— as you're
moving forward right now.
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Absolutely You know, just having access
to that education, to your point, is vital. It leads to greater
outcomes as it relates
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to, you know, home ownership,
entrepreneurship, education, all of those things play a
significant role in— in just
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having access to financial
literacy education, financial wellness programs. And I want to
just take a moment and highlight
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some of the work that is
actually happening here at Wharton around some of these
topics. There is a class that is
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currently taught through our
Global Youth Program around the essentials of personal finance.
We have Professor— a Wharton
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Professor, Keith Weigelt, who's
doing amazing work with a program called Bridges to
Wealth, which we're going to
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have as an exhibitor at our at
our summit next week, in that he's going to be sharing more
about, you know, bridging the
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wealth gap. And so all of these
things, that education, it has ripple effects, if you will. It
has significant impacts on the
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ability for people to show up in
their communities, to serve within their communities. To— to
thrive as small businesses in
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their communities. And so we
want to support the community in which we live, to ensure that
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our communities are continuing
to thrive. But how important is it to meet the
community, the people in that
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community, out there in their
locations, rather than— -Yeah. — really bring them in here on campus.
- Yeah. We—
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we have felt very strongly about
this, to the point where, you know, we have this summit
outside of the park, which is
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near Penn Presbyterian. But we
were very, very— this was very important to us. We— we did not
want to have it on campus
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because we wanted to make it as
accessible as possible to the community. We want them to know
that we are walking with them,
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that this is not something that
we're, you know, imposing on them, or we're saying that, you
know, we know better. But we
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want to— you know, we're trying
to create an environment where we're building trust with the
community, and also that
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accessibility. So we're really
excited about the fact that it is, you know, at a park within
the community. And we hope that
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that continues to help us to
build those connections. Are we talking about, Joshua, a time,
then, realistically, where—and
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part of the discussion also
going on in our communities is the issues of access to health care
in general. Are we talking about
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really kind of a similar
scenario where the impact of lack of financial education or
not having the understanding to
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a degree is similar to what
we're seeing about not having that access to health care? And
both are providing quite the
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challenge for many people in low
income— income communities? I think that's exactly right. You
know, there are many, many
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parallels, and they really go
hand in hand. And, you know, just to sort of agree with and
add to what Renita said, I think
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one thing we feel very strongly
about is that if we're going to reach our community, we need to
partner with them. And what that
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means is not talking at them or
talking to them, but talking with them. And there's no better
way to do that than meeting them
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in person, or sometimes over the
radio, where they can call in and we can talk to them and give
advice. And I think that
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although Penn sits in West
Philadelphia, it could be an intimidating institution for
many of the people that live
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here, and we want to break down
that intimidation and really get out there and find out what our
community's needs are by talking
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with them.
- I would imagine, then, having this
partnership, Renita, but moving
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forward, you're talking about an
institution like Wharton and also like Penn Medicine being
able to leverage the expertise
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or the networks that they have
to be able to continue to build relationships with the
community, not just in this
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specific area, but in many other
areas down the road as well. Absolutely. We have so much to offer. We
have so much expertise here at
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this institution, with our
faculty, with our staff, with all of the various programs that
exist and the incredible
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resources that are available
here at Wharton and at University of Pennsylvania. And
we feel like, and we hope, that
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this is just the beginning of
how we can begin and continue to think about these cross-school
collaborations and how they have
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an impact within the community,
within the institution itself and for the broader community as
well.
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- Joshua, how do you think
this impacts the medical side? Well, you know, I think Penn
Medicine has a deep sense of
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responsibility to its local
community. And access to health care, as we discussed, is a— a
major, major problem across the
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nation, and our community is no
exception. And I think this sort of a venue embodies Penn
Medicine's ideal of community
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service and reducing health
inequities that exist. And so, you know, I think basically, you
have two of the world's greatest
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institutions here in West
Philadelphia, and why not share access to both of those with our
own community? Penn Medicine
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gets patients from all around
the world, but I think our— we feel our biggest sense of
obligation is to the community
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that we serve.
The local community. Great to have you both with us
today. Thanks very much for your time.
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- Thank you so much for having us.
- Thank you. Thank you. Renita Miller, Chief
Diversity Equity and Inclusion
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Officer here at Wharton School,
and Joshua Levine, who is Chief of the Division of Neurocritical Care
at Penn Medicine.