Public Health Insight

Prevention is the most powerful public health tool we have and yet the hardest to fund. Dr. Hope Ferdowsian of Phoenix Zones Initiative explains how her organization is changing that: informing global health strategies, training cross-sector professionals, and advancing a justice-centered framework called Just One Health that targets root causes, not symptoms. She also shares a bold 10-year vision — where well-being replaces GDP, animals gain rights recognition, and prevention is the default. 

References for Our Discussion
◼️Phoenix Zones Website

Guest
◼️Hope Ferdowsian, Co-Founder and President of Phoenix Zones Initiative

Host
◼️ Purva Mehta, BMSc, MSc

Producer
◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®

Production Notes
◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music Room

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Animal abuse is a predictor child abuse. Slaughterhouse locations correlate with violent crime. Over three-quarters of emerging infectious diseases trace back to how we treat animals and ecosystems. In this episode of the Public Health Insight Podcast, Dr. Hope Ferdowsian connects these patterns to a single root cause: systems built on hierarchies that reduce living beings to their financial worth. She challenges public health to stop treating symptoms, expand its moral circle beyond humans, and finally address the conditions that create disease, violence, and exploitation in the first place.

References for Our Discussion
◼️Phoenix Zones Website

Guest
◼️Hope Ferdowsian, Co-Founder and President of Phoenix Zones Initiative

Host
◼️ Purva Mehta, BMSc, MSc

Producer
◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®

Production Notes

◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music Room

Leave Us Some Feedback
If you enjoy our podcasts, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and spread the word to your friends to help us get discovered by more people. You can also interact directly with the podcast episodes on Spotify using the new “comment” feature! We’d love to hear what you think.

Send us a Text Message to let us know what you think.

Healing people requires healing animals and the systems we share. Dr. Hope Ferdowsian traces that conviction from a sheep named Crystal on an Oklahoma farm to sanctuary chimpanzees with PTSD, to asylum seekers she's evaluated across borders. The through-line isn't a coincidence — it's a career built on understanding humanity through animals, following suffering wherever it leads, and finding resilience on the other side.

References for Our Discussion
◼️Phoenix Zones Website

Guest
◼️Hope Ferdowsian, Co-Founder and President of Phoenix Zones Initiative

Host
◼️ Purva Mehta, BMSc, MSc

Executive Producer
◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®

Production Notes

◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music Room

Leave Us Some Feedback
If you enjoy our podcasts, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and spread the word to your friends to help us get discovered by more people. You can also interact directly with the podcast episodes on Spotify using the new “comment” feature! We’d love to hear what you think.

Send us a Text Message to let us know what you think.

What if the prescription wasn't a pill, but cash? Rx Kids gives expecting and new mothers up to $7,500, no questions asked. Laura Keen from GiveDirectly explains why giving money to everyone — not just the poorest — actually works better, why nearly every eligible mom in Flint signed up, and what happened to preterm births, evictions, and depression when communities invested in families from day one. Plus, how a program centered on babies united both sides of the political aisle.

References for Our Discussion
◼️The US town that pays every pregnant woman $1,500: ‘We’re not OK with our babies being born into poverty’ 
◼️Direct Unconditional Cash Transfers Boost Well-Being for Mothers and Babies 
◼️Perinatal Cash Transfers and Birth Outcomes: A Population-Based, Quasi-Experimental Study of the Rx Kids Unconditional Cash Prescription During Pregnancy and Infancy 
◼️Hardship and Hope: The Relationship Between Unconditional Prenatal and Infant Cash Transfers, Economic Stability, and Maternal Mental Health and Well-Being
◼️To End Extreme Poverty, Give Cash — Not Advice | Rory Stewart | TED
◼️New research: Cash for pregnant moms in Flint led to healthier births and millions in healthcare savings 

Guest
◼️Laura Keen, U.S. Program Director, GiveDirectly

Host
◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®

Producer
◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®
◼️Abhinya Gulasingam

Production Notes
◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music Room

Leave Us Some Feedback
If you enjoy our podcasts, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and spread the word to your friends to help us get discovered by more people. You can also interact directly with the podcast episodes on Spotify using the new “comment” feature! We’d love to hear what you think.

Send us a Text Message to let us know what you think.

Flint, Michigan was once known as one of America's most prosperous industrial cities. Decades of deindustrialization and a water crisis changed that, but crisis isn't the whole story. Laura Keen of GiveDirectly joins the podcast to explore the resilience behind the popular headlines, the gaps in America's safety net, and what the expanded Child Tax Credit revealed about child poverty. All of it set the stage for Rx Kids — one of the most ambitious social programs in the country.

References for Our Discussion
◼️The US town that pays every pregnant woman $1,500: ‘We’re not OK with our babies being born into poverty’ 
◼️Direct Unconditional Cash Transfers Boost Well-Being for Mothers and Babies 
◼️Perinatal Cash Transfers and Birth Outcomes: A Population-Based, Quasi-Experimental Study of the Rx Kids Unconditional Cash Prescription During Pregnancy and Infancy 
◼️Hardship and Hope: The Relationship Between Unconditional Prenatal and Infant Cash Transfers, Economic Stability, and Maternal Mental Health and Well-Being
◼️To End Extreme Poverty, Give Cash — Not Advice | Rory Stewart | TED
◼️New research: Cash for pregnant moms in Flint led to healthier births and millions in healthcare savings 

Guest
◼️Laura Keen, U.S. Program Director, GiveDirectly

Host
◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®

Producer
◼️Gordon Thane, BMSc, MPH, PMP®
◼️Abhinya Gulasingam

Production Notes

◼️ Music from Johnny Harris x Tom Fox: The Music Room

Leave Us Some Feedback
If you enjoy our podcasts, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating on Apple Podcast or Spotify, and spread the word to your friends to help us get discovered by more people. You can also interact directly with the podcast episodes on Spotify using the new “comment” feature! We’d love to hear what you think.

Send us a Text Message to let us know what you think.