"Moving from Healthcare to Health: Back to the
Future with Primary Prevention
On Thursday, October 25, Community
Voices will present Dr. John Dreyzehner, Commissioner of the Tennessee
Department of Health and Chair of the Advisory Committee for the Virginia
Tech-Carilion School of Medicine’s Master of Public Health Degree Program. The Community Voices talk will be from 7-8
p.m. in Historic Lyric Theatre in downtown Blacksburg, Virginia. Admission is free and all are welcome. Dr. Dreyzehner, former director of Virginia’s Cumberland Plateau Health District, and
founding faculty of the Healthy Appalachia Institute at the University of Virginia,
will speak on effective prevention practices and policies.
Dr. Dreyzehner’s talk focuses on the importance of effective
prevention. He challenges policy makers,
health care practitioners, and citizens to consider how nearly forty percent of
the factors that shorten our lives are behaviors that we can modify. Building on this reality, he argues for a
radical increase in emphasis on primary prevention. He urges widespread education, involvement
and advocacy around these concerns since the health care sector cannot, and in
some cases will not, make these changes alone.
Instead he calls for widespread systemic change, grounded in broader
social and cultural support.
The Community Voices speakers are
engaged in fostering work that strengthens community. Their leadership includes the capacity to
speak cogently and concisely about their experiences, to tell stories that are
revealing of their work, and to present ideas for change, ideas that matter.
Sponsors and
Partners:
·
Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and
Governance
·
Virginia Tech Center for the
Arts
· Virginia Tech Department of
Religion and Culture
·
Virginia
Cooperative Extension
·
Virginia Tech Department of English
·
Virginia Tech School
of Public and
International Affairs
·
Virginia Tech College of Architecture and Urban Studies
·
The
Women and Minority Artists and Scholars Lecture Series"
