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.
Our transdisciplinary community of Scholars and Fellows investigates critical questions, elevates evidence-based practices, and discovers cutting-edge solutions. These incredible thought leaders come from diverse fields—such as medicine, photobiology, atmospheric chemistry, epidemiology, and psychology—and their work examines the full spectrum of health, healing, and flourishing through many lenses. Here we share some highlights of their work.
Nova Scholars Sara Warber and Susan Prescott, Fellow Alan C. Logan, and colleagues call for spiritual and cultural transformations and renewed connections with nature in this article in Challenges.
Nova Scholar Judy Rollins discusses active shooter incidents in healthcare settings, especially as it pertains to patients and children.
After a comprehensive review of available evidence, Nova Scholar Claudia Witt and colleague Jun Mao developed the first joint Society for Oncology-Society for Clinical Oncology guideline for managing cancer pain with acupuncture.
The concept of planetary health interweaves the vitality of natural and anthropogenic ecosystems and presents a framework for cross-sectoral collaboration. In this article in Challenges, Nova Scholar Susan Prescott emphasizes the role of journals and other integrated system approaches to foster tapestry thinking.
Nova Scholar Kurt Stange and colleagues offer a framework for clinical healing relationships beyond the traditional patient/clinician dyad, the Healing Healthcare Team.
In the latest Nova Interview, Nova Fellow Alan C. Logan sits down with University of Utah biologist Dr. Nalini Nadkarni, who has skillfully drawn straight lines between her pioneering work at the highest reaches of rainforest treetops and multiple policy implications.
Nova Scholar Kurt Stange and colleagues’ study, published in Innovation in Aging, examines how aging and cancer influence older adults’ health trajectories differently.
Nova Scholar Steve Woolf’s new article in Health Affairs ties the declining U.S. life expectancy with policy choices, suggesting that U.S. health disadvantages are a matter of choice.
In response to expressed community need in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nova Fellow Carley Riley worked with colleagues and stakeholders to develop a System to Achieve Food Equity.
Nova Scholar Kurt Stange contributed to this Case and Commentary published in the AMA Journal of Ethics, highlighting the power wielded by physicians and exploring whether that power should be owned, aimed, or shared.
This work from Nova Fellows Brita Roy and Carley Riley and colleagues in JAMA Network used data from more than 500,000 adults in the United States between 1999 and 2018. It found that barriers to timely medical care rose for all four race and ethnicity groups studied.
Nova Scholar Kurt Stange explores the various inequities and disparities that impact those living with epilepsy. “Inequities in health arise from policies and are facilitated by structural, health care, socio-cultural, and physiological factors.” This article also highlights key areas of intervention across the lifespan to strive towards health equity.
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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.
