Author: lnr47030

This webinar features four speakers Rachel Bennett, MPH, MURP, Maria Sipin, Nate Storring, and Jennifer S. Vey, who are from the Brookings Institution, Prevention Institute and Project for Public Spaces, that have combined to form the Bass Initiative on Innovation and Peacemaking.  Their hopes are to address the roots of gentrification, particularly innovation economic development and investments and walkability quality places can promote economic opportunity.

The speakers begin by discussing what gentrification is, where does change come from and who drives it.  They highlight that communities can drive change by focusing on three outcomes:

-Prevent negative outcomes from externally driven change

– Guide potentially positive outcomes from externally driven change

– Empower internally driven change

Their primary focus is on the innovation of economy, which is driven by innovation processes that increasingly demand collaboration. The importance of this collaboration is that it changes the spatial geography of innovation such that the hyper local is increasing valued.  The hyper local refers to an area of a well-defined small comminuted that focuses on the matters that are directed towards the concerns of that population.  This can create innovation, arts and creative districts and food markets.  This brings together diversity and new opportunity to connect people to the economy.

I found this webinar very interesting, because when observing any improvements within communities, I am wary whether these initiatives actually reduces or increases displacement.  Mr. Storring highlights that community engagement is key and even though it takes time to build trust, it is a necessary component in order to make sure the community has a say in improving their community and creating an ownership element, thereby avoiding gentrification.  Ms. Bennett further discussed how to contribute to build healthy communities without contributing to gentrification.  They support grassroots organizing, research and policy advocacy to prevent displacement.  In building healthy communities as well as maintaining affordable housing, from a public heath standpoint, the focus is on health equity.  This is defined as “every person, regardless of who they are – the color of their skin, their level of education, their gender or sexual identify, whether or not they have a disability, the job that they have, or the neighborhood that they live in – has an equal opportunity to achieve optimal health.” Braveman, et al., 2011.

In closing, Ms. Sipin discusses the process of boosting community power for mobility justice.  Multicultural Communities for Mobility (MCM) is an organization made of team members who are active transportation advocates who stand up against racism and discrimination, evictions, rent increase, police violence and harassment, just to name a few areas interest.

This institute provides a great guideline for tackling the major issue at hand.

This CNN article (1) begins by focusing on summarizing a recent study from the journal of Nature Communications, “Fructose-1, 6-bisphophate couples glycolytic flux to activation of Ras” by Peeters et al. (2) to ask in essence, if sugar leads to cancer and suggests that the research project may influence personal medicine and dies for cancer patients.

The article by Peeters et al., examined yeast and cancer cells as they share a yeast mutation to identify the molecular connection between glucose fermentation and the activation of RAS.  They conclude that the Warburg effect creates a vicious cycle through Fru1,6bisP activation of Ras, by which enhanced fermentation stimulates oncogenic potency.

The CNN article further references other studies that that may leads to the linkage of eating excess sugar can lead to weight gain.  Thereby increasing risk for obesity, which in turn, is linked to a higher risk of some cancer.

When examining whether media outlets accurately report what is presenting in scholarly articles, it is important to scrutinize if certain circumstances or false pretenses may be occurring:

• Did the journalist accurately translate the technical jargon of the article?
• Did the journalist make causal or audacious conclusions?
• Are multiple studies cited without accounting for shortcoming’s and differences in individual studies?
• Are the significant finding reporting’s over or under inflated?

The original article is extremely technical, but from my understanding of the study, the science writer for CNN does not deviate much from the content outlined in the publication.  The title, however is misleading.  As most writers must do, they created an attention-grabbing headline, in order to draw readers in.  Where this becomes a problem is when individuals run off with just the headline(s) and potentially spread inaccurate information.  As professionals, we should be aware of this issue, especially when working with patients who may skim news outlets as a primary source of information.  We should make efforts to thoroughly inform our patients and make them away of some of these possible misrepresentations.  It would be more beneficial to refer our clients and /or patients to reputable sources and explain that one study is not enough to substantiate its findings; readings reviews and meta-analyses are more helpful.

• http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/27/health/sugar-cancer-relationship-study/index.html
• Peeters, K., Van Leemputte, F., Fischer, B., Bonini, B. M., Quezada, H., Tsytlonok, M., & … Thevelein, J. M. (2017). Fructose-1,6-bisphosphate couples glycolytic flux to activation of Ras. Nature Communications, 8(1), 922. doi:10.1038/s41467-017-01019-z