The Institute is particularly interested in health as the means by which our society and all individuals, regardless of age or state of wellness, can realize their full potential. Through a wide range of initiatives, the Institute aims to enrich our understanding of what constitutes health and explore novel ways to promote it. Institute projects focus on advancing science, developing health promotion strategies and technologies, and bridging scientific knowledge with everyday life by actively engaging the public through unique outreach.

Conversations on Health

The Conversations on Health series is furthering a key goal of the Institute—to catalyze a new multidisciplinary conversation that broadens and changes fundamental questions such as: “What is health?,” “How can it be optimized?,” and “How can healthcare be re-envisioned to meet the real health care needs of the nation?” Through a series of dialogues with a wide range of stakeholders, the Institute aims to gain new insights, map opportunities for maintaining health across the life spectrum, and increase understanding of integrative medicine, particularly as it applies to optimizing health. The Conversations series is ultimately expected to spark new collaborations and initiatives.

Among participants in the first twelve Conversations on Health were physicians, health care policy experts, corporate leaders, a nurse-midwife, a social worker, and an attorney. Click here for a summary of these Conversations, held Fall 2008 through Summer 2009.

New Media for Cultural Change

There has been an unprecedented emergence of new technologies and software applications that are connecting people in revolutionary ways through the use of online forums and social networking. Speak Health uses narrative video segments to build a discourse around the issue of healthcare in America. The resulting web-based community is prompting people to reflect upon, discuss, and rethink their relationship to their own health, and to healthcare overall. A collaboration between the Institute and UMBC’s Imaging Research Center, this initiative pushes toward the discovery of new forms of media that can be more effective at weaving knowledge into culture and inspiring activity beyond the more traditional means of interaction.