Systemic change starts with each of us. And our collective lived experience can and should drive public health transformation.
In Health, for Each Other
Stories move us. Policy changes us. At Healthful Stories, the journeys people share are not only a source of hope for one another. They are evidence. They show us where the health system works, where it fails, and who it never reaches. Advocacy in Action is how we turn that evidence into change.
We focus on the people the system is most likely to miss. Nearly 1 in 3 Americans has no primary care doctor, and about 1 in 2 say they are too afraid to ask a doctor if something is wrong. If no one sees you, no one can save you. Our work is to make sure the experiences of people who go unseen are counted, understood, and built into the programs meant to serve them.
We are an early-stage organization doing focused, rigorous work. These are the two advocacy priorities we are pursuing right now, beginning in Washington State.
Our Programs
Turning lived experience into better health policy.
Designed With, Not For
Lived experience belongs in the design of the programs that affect it.
Health care programs are too often designed for vulnerable communities without input from the people who live those realities every day. People with lower incomes, communities of color, and women carry health system experiences that rarely reach the rooms where programs are designed and adjusted. We believe those experiences should shape that design from the start.
What we are doing: Building an evidence base from our own interviews. We are working with the lived-experience data we have already gathered to document the needs we believe exist, in the words of the people who shared them.
Deepening our data in Washington State. We are expanding our interviews with vulnerable populations across Washington so our evidence reflects the communities closest to home.Â
Grounding our work in existing research. We are reviewing published research and Washington-specific data, and building relationships with academics and researchers across the state to test and strengthen what we are hearing.
Mapping programs to the people they affect. We are talking with other health-focused advocacy organizations to understand which programs reach which communities, where the gaps are, and where a coalition could push for change together.
Empathy as Standard of Care
Every frontline provider should be trained in medical empathy.
How a patient is treated shapes whether they return, follow through, or ever seek care again. Empathy is not a soft skill. It is part of good medicine. Our Journeys are full of turning points that came down to a single clinician who truly listened. We want that to be the standard, not the exception, which is why we advocate for required medical empathy training for all frontline health care providers.
What we are doing: Testing whether this is new ground. We are researching whether required medical empathy training already exists in practice or whether it remains an unmet gap.Â
Looking for the gap between values and practice in Washington. We are conducting a literature search to understand whether stated commitments to empathetic care match what patients actually experience. Where the evidence is thin, we aim to work with researchers at the University of Washington to help build it.Â
Listening to clinicians. We are talking with doctors about the empathy training they have and have not received, so our advocacy reflects how providers are actually taught.
Healthful H E A R T Fellows
Healing · Empathy · Advocacy · Reach · Trust
Our advocacy runs on people who believe health care should reach everyone. The Healthful HEART Fellowship brings on emerging leaders in public policy, public health, and related fields to help build the evidence base behind our advocacy priorities and move them toward real change. HEART stands for the values our fellows carry into the work: Healing, Empathy, Advocacy, Reach, and Trust.
Fellows work directly on the hard issues surrounding our advocacy pillars. They gather and analyze lived-experience data, conduct literature and policy research, map the programs that affect underserved communities, and help build the relationships and coalitions that turn evidence into policy.
Meet our inaugural fellow. We are proud to be building this program with our first HEART Fellow, Michael Boakye Yiadom, a Master of Public Administration candidate at Texas Tech University, originally from Ghana, who will be partnering with our advocacy team over the next seven months. He is originally a firefighter, where he was on the front lines of serving his community and he has seen the gaps in health services from the front lines.
Become a HEART Fellow. We are growing this program. If you are an emerging policy, public health, or advocacy professional who wants to help make sure no one goes unseen, we would love to hear from you.
Take Action: Let's Collaborate!
If you’re ready to make a difference, reach out today!
E-mail us at: Contact@HealthfulHeroes.com
Let’s change the world, one health journey at a time!