From her work as a rural doctor in the Indian Health Service, to deploying to West Africa during the Ebola crisis, and now her current role as Director of Public Health in Pima County Arizona, Dr. Theresa Cullen’s life is a masterclass in bravery, service, and fighting for what is right. 

Nov 13, 2024

With the election days away, Larry Levitt joins me to discuss where Harris and Trump stand on key health issues: reproductive health, affordability & Medicaid. While health is not center stage, the outcome of this election will have profound impacts on every aspect of health in years ahead.

Oct 30, 2024

Like other cities, New York had a dramatic decrease in life expectancy in 2020. New York City Health Commissioner, Dr. Ashwin Vasan, joins us to talk about the city’s ambitious campaign to turn this around, with the aim of increasing life expectancy to 83 years by 2030.

Oct 16, 2024

In July, the US Surgeon General issued a landmark advisory on gun violence. It builds on decades of work from Dr. Megan Ranney and other researchers who advocate taking a public health approach to reducing firearm violence. She joined us at Aspen Ideas: Health to discuss what this means.

Oct 2, 2024

Deena Shakir is an investor who is obsessed with expanding access to the basic health services people need and often can’t access: pediatric care, community health and women’s services. Her journey to investing passed through policymaking, journalism and big tech.

Sep 18, 2024

What would it look like for government to invest in transformational, and fundamentally risky, big and bold bets? That's what ARPA-H is aiming to do for health. We sat down with Director Renee Wegrzyn at Aspen Ideas: Health to talk about how it’s going and what comes next.

Sep 4, 2024

In the 1970s we had a surplus of affordable housing. Today, we are short millions of housing units. Jeff Olivet, Executive Director of USICH (United States Interagency Council on Homelessness), says the problem is complex – but the math isn’t. We need more affordable housing.

July 24, 2024

California is the latest state to address healthcare affordability through cost growth targets. Elizabeth Mitchell, President and CEO of Purchaser Business Group on Health, joins us to discuss the nuts and bolts of the 3% cost growth target recently adopted by the state.

July 10, 2024

The scope, scale & timeline of what California is trying to do with CalAIM is truly breathtaking. Two years after the launch of the ambitious program, which offers integrated medical and social care for California's 15 million Medicaid members, Dr. Palav Babaria joins us to discuss how it’s going.

June 26, 2024

To achieve whole person care, we can layer social services on top of medical care. But Dr. Rishi Manchanda believes we should move further upstream and ask, what will it take to actually improve health in communities? That’s what Rishi and his company HealthBegins are focused on.

June 12, 2024

June 18th is “Maya Petersen” day in San Francisco, in honor of her work building disease models that guided the region through COVID. The UC Berkeley epidemiologist is building a future where local public health leaders have the tools to ask and answer complex policy decisions in real time.

May 29, 2023

More than ten years after the ACA was passed, and in a historic bipartisan move, the North Carolina General Assembly voted to expand Medicaid. Kody Kinsley, the state’s Secretary of Health & Human Services, joins us to talk about what it took to get this done and how it’s been going so far.

May 15, 2024

One thing is clear from the last four years: public health leaders need to seriously upgrade their skills in communication and partnering. In this episode Dr. Anne Zink, who inspired both a Facebook fan group and the hashtag #ThinkLikeZinkis as Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer, brings us a master class on both topics.

May 1, 2024

Today’s guest is Susannah Fox, author of Rebel Health: A Field Guide to the Patient-Led Revolution in Medical Care. The book is a deep dive into the expert network of patients, survivors and caregivers who are charting a new path of innovation and research.

April 17, 2023

We'll be unpacking lessons from the COVID 19 pandemic for many years to come. Dr. Tomás Aragón, who leads public health for the State of California, joins us to discuss what he learned guiding America's most populous state through this challenging and disruptive period.

April 3, 2024

In 2023, TIME named Dr. Ziad Obermeyer one of the 100 most influential people working in AI. As a professor at UC Berkeley School of Public Health, and co-founder of a non-profit and startup in the AI space, his work centers on how to leverage AI to improve health and avoid racial bias.

Mar 20, 2024

Black women in the US are 3-4 times more likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women. Dr. Monica McLemore joins us to discuss why we should stop blaming women and instead address the underlying social and healthcare drivers that impact pregnancy outcomes.

Mar 6, 2024

What is your just cause? Karen Dale's “why” is to catalyze big changes that make healthcare more equitable and humane. She is a bold and fearless leader and the DC Market President for AmeriHealth Caritas. In this episode she shares the leadership practices that support her work from sharing power to community co-design.

Feb 21, 2024

When it comes to healthcare, there is a lot we agree on. We want a system that is affordable, easy to understand and is there for us when we need it. Shaped by these principles, Natalie Davis and her team at United States of Care are building a healthcare system that works for everyone.

Feb 7, 2024

Steve Downs, the co-founder of Building H and former CTO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, joins us to discuss how Building H is helping companies and designers re-engineer products and “product environments” so they improve rather than harm health.

Jan 24, 2024

Rural America — home to 60 million — is facing a healthcare crisis. Dr. Jennifer Schneider, CEO of Homeward, discusses how her company is re-architecting care delivery in rural America with the goals of improving access and health outcomes.

Jan 10, 2024

Long before it was common, community health centers (CHCs) had a model of care that was holistic, grounded in social change and embedded in the community. I sit down with Dr. Kyu Rhee, CEO of the National Association of CHCs.

Dec 13, 2023

Is whole health here to stay, or is it a shiny new object? Our guest today is Dr. Shantanu Agrawal, Chief Health Officer at Elevance Health. He falls soundly on the “here to stay” side of the ledger.

Nov 29, 2023

Tony led The California Endowment’s nearly $2 billion and decade-long investment to improve health in California by building the voice and power of communities. He joins me to discuss what they learned.

Nov 1, 2023

Jess Kahn joins me to discuss state efforts to integrate programs, technology and data to support whole person health. She led Medicaid data and systems at CMS and is now a partner at McKinsey specializing in state Medicaid and social service programs, public-sector data and technology.

Oct 18, 2023

Jennifer Pahlka and I discuss how to improve the impact of big new policy initiatives. Her book, “Recoding America”, is essential reading for anyone trying to make government – or any ambitious project - work for people.

Oct 4, 2023

Dr. Pooja Mittal, Health Net’s Chief Health Equity Officer, joins us to discuss how she uses data and community organizing to drive equity improvements for Health Net’s 3 million California members.

Sep 20, 2023

Alan Weil, Editor of Health Affairs, is the perfect person to launch our Season 2 conversation about what works. The conversation ended in an unexpected place - a discussion of governance and power.

Sep 6, 2023

We started this podcast with some big questions. In this episode Claudia sits down with her producer Avery Moore Kloss to discuss lessons learned and highlights from Season One and share what’s on deck for Season Two.

July 26, 2023

For Clemens Hong health is social justice work, rooted in the community-oriented primary care movement of the 1960s. He joins us for a powerful interview about implementing whole person care in LA County.

July 12, 2023

The US has a 94 percent treatment gap for substance use disorders. Treatments are expensive, ineffective, or they’re simply not available. Corbin Petro, CEO and Co-Founder of Eleanor Health is on a mission to close this gap.

June 28, 2023

Jacey Cooper gives us an on-the-ground look at CA’s CalAIM initiative that pairs intensive care management with access to social services. She shares how much communication, coordination, and agility was needed in the first year.

June 14, 2023

Sachin Jain is setting out to build a very different kind of company—a nationally scaled nonprofit health plan grounded in Scan’s founding story of activists seeking a new future of health for vulnerable communities.

May 31, 2023

Former NIMH director and renowned neuroscientist Tom Insel joins Claudia to talk about the state of mental health in America today. The conversation dives into what it will take to scale integrated treatment approaches across the nation.

May 17, 2023

Claudia chats with Dr. Aditi Mallick — Chief Medical Officer for Medicaid & CHIP at CMS — about their three-part agenda to improve equity, implement whole person care and expand coverage.

May 3, 2023

Abner Mason, Founder and CEO of SameSky Health, has spent decades working to reduce barriers to care faced by underserved people, who often experience harm and misunderstanding in health encounters. He joins me to talk about how to build trust in healthcare.

April 19, 2023

Many investors and founders shy away from building Medicaid-focused companies. Andy Slavitt – policymaker, investor and ‘In the Bubble’ host – joins us to discuss why this is a huge mistake.

April 5, 2023

Claudia sits down with Dr. Brad Gilbert who led Inland Empire Health Plan’s $30M investment in housing and other social supports when he was CEO, creating a template for California’s whole person health demonstration, CalAIM.

March 22, 2023

Claudia chats with Dr. Mini Kahlon, the founding Vice Dean of Health Ecosystem at Dell Medical School, about how to build health ecosystems and the role of medical schools in creating health beyond the clinic.

March 8, 2023

Former NC Secretary of Health Dr. Mandy Cohen joins us to talk about why a shift to whole person care is the right approach and how she generated bi-partisan support for NC’s groundbreaking Healthy Opportunities Pilots.

February 22, 2023

Welcome to The Other 80 with former senior White House advisor and entrepreneur Claudia Williams. This podcast is opening a new conversation about the move to whole person health in America.

February 8, 2023