We look at the whole picture, the entire lived experience that influences health.
Our work examines health through many lenses that intersect, and it often helps people who are underserved or experiencing trauma — for example, veterans suffering from PTSD, children with serious illness, low-income residents grappling with systemic racism and neglect, and others.
In The Laryngoscope, Nova Fellow Chris D’Adamo and colleagues evaluate the impact of two tracheostomy heat and moisture exchangers on tracheobronchial mucosal health, oxygenation, humidification, and patient preference.
Nova Scholars Rebecca Etz and Kurt Stange and colleagues’ work in NEJM Catalyst uses data from more than 30,000 responses over two years to the Larry A. Green Center COVID-19 Primary Care Survey to describe the unique challenges facing primary care.
Nova Fellow Chris D’Adamo and colleagues published findings from the first randomized, double-blind, controlled trial comparing the effects of CBD and melatonin on sleep as well as therapeutic benefits of combining CBD isolate with melatonin or minor cannabinoids.
In Health Affairs, Nova Scholar Rebecca Etz and colleague Robert L. Phillips, Jr., examine the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) “Universal Foundation” measures and assert that modifications to the proposed measures are required to avoid overburdening an already-stressed primary care sector.
Nova Scholar Claudia Witt and colleagues explore whether cancer survival stories are helpful to patients coping with their own cancer journey, and identify four four main characteristics that are especially effective.
Nova Scholars Kurt Stange and Rebecca Etz outline the importance of primary care, current setbacks, and ways to amplify primary care’s role in improving population health through policy change.
Nova Scholar Judy Rollins discusses the rising trend of gun violence in schools and points out that most school shootings are preventable, offering some hope for the future.
Nova Fellows Alan C. Logan and Chris D’Adamo and Scholar Susan Prescott closely examine the underlying values and social constructs that have contributed to deceptive marketing at the cost of individual and collective health and call for a shift toward kindness, reciprocity, and mutualistic values for an equitable future.
Nova Fellows Brita Roy and Carley Riley and colleagues article in SSM-Qualitative Research in Health investigates community factors in gun violence.
Nova Scholar Kurt Stange and colleagues implemented the Practice-Tailored Medicare Annual Wellness Visit (AWV) in three small community-based practices. This intervention and study published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine suggests greater consideration should be given to delivering interventions virtually.
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Over the past thirty years, we’ve been part of a movement to shift the primary approach to health from a focus on disease to a more complete approach. As reflected in our tagline, “For Health of People, Places, and Planet,” how we are building on “person health” and looking at the context of peoples’ lives and communities as well as the health of the planet we all share.
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Healing is facilitated through safety, persistence, and trust.
Resources support us as we heal. They include reframing, responsibility, and positivity. “Making connections enabled participants to acquire and refine resources and skills that were essential in their healing journey. People also brought their own personal strengths to the journey.”
“Connection to others was an essential part of all the healing journeys.” Humans are social creatures, and even the most introverted of us need close relationships. Friends and family add meaning and value to life and help support us, in good times and bad.
When we experience relational trauma, relationships can feel scary, but reestablishing safety and trust in relationships is where the healing happens. (To be clear, we do not mean reestablishing safety and trust with abusers, but rather finding other healing relationships.)
“When safety and trust had been established, people were able to connect with helpers. The nature of the behaviours of helpers that fostered healing ranged from small acts of kindness to unconditional love.”
Healing probably means different things to different people, but one definition that emerged from the study is: “The re-establishment of a sense of integrity and wholeness.”
Healing was an emergent property that resulted from each individuals’ complex healing journey, a result of bridged connections between resources and relationships. “…they gradually found relief from suffering and began to exhibit emergent characteristics: a sense of hope, self-acceptance, and a desire to help others—the immediate precursors to healing.”
In varying degrees, “they were able to transcend their suffering and in some sense to flourish.”
Suffering is the ongoing pain from wounding.
There is debate about whether or not one actually needs to experience suffering on the path to healing.
Wounding happens when we experience physical or emotional harm. It can stem from chronic illness or by physical or psychological trauma for which we do not have the tools to cope, or a combination of those factors.
“The degree and quality of suffering experienced by each individual is framed by contextual factors that include personal characteristics, timing of their initial or ongoing wounding in the developmental life cycle and prior and current relationships.”
Characteristics: How predisposed someone may be to wounding/how many tools and resources someone may have to deal with trauma/illness.
Lifestages: Developmental timing plays an important role in the impact of trauma — young children often do not have the same resources as older adults.
Relationships: Relationships can provide solace and support for those suffering, while lack of healthy relationships can prolong suffering.
