Emory University Urban Health Initiative

Atlanta is experiencing great health disparity. Poor people and people of color are more likely to live shorter and sicker lives and are less likely to survive chronic illnesses than their fellow Atlantans.

The Urban Health Initiative serves people in underserved communities in metropolitan Atlanta. The initiative provides health education and advocacy, builds collaborative partnerships and develops best-practice models to advance equity in health and well-being.

The initiative offers the following programs:

Community Teaching Garden

The Community Teaching Garden has strong connections with the Bankhead, Vine City and Oak Grove communities in northwest Atlanta. They are in “food deserts,” as designated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. About 250 community members have worked in the garden or attended workshops. The initiative has implemented a number of programs, including:

 The Young Ag-Entrepreneur Program: The program combines gardening/agricultural education, community leadership and business skill development in two sessions a week for ten weeks.

 The Tuesday Noon Together Program: The program serves lunch to senior citizens in the community. The meals provide opportunities for inter-generational engagement. The program also provides information on disaster preparedness to community residents and the homeless.

Emory University Urban Health Initiative

Dental Divergence Program

This program addresses untreated dental pain and its resultant health and economic effects. It works with Grady Memorial Hospital’s Emergency Department to direct patients with oral and tooth pain to the HEALing Community Center’s dental clinic. The dental clinic is frequently a more appropriate and cost-effective alternative to the emergency room. The program displays the dental clinic’s posters in the hospital, uses patient navigators and refers patients to the clinic.

Doula Support to Pregnant Teens

A doula supports a mother before, during and shortly after childbirth. The doula support program addresses the needs of pregnant teens at Cross Keys High School. It focuses on students who lack labor and delivery support, as well as those who want to pursue a career as a doula.

The program also:  Gathers economic and patient outcome data to inform policymakers about the value of adding doulas to birthing teams.

 Organizes Atlanta’s doula community.

 Delivers birth spacing messages to the public.

 Is designing a hospital on-call program.

Tobacco Cessation Program

This pilot project at Grady hospital, begun in 2016, provides smoking cessation classes to patients and employees. It aims to identify the barriers to assessing smoking status at each patient encounter.

For more information, please contact Brittany Evans at

brittany.evans@emory.edu.