Howard L. Bost Memorial Health Policy Forum

An annual forum to raise awareness of health issues impacting Kentuckians and highlight model strategies and policy opportunities to improve Kentucky’s health. Recordings of these forums, as well as speaker’s presentations, are archived on our website here.

 

2019: Medical Marijuana

The 2019 forum focused on the public health considerations associated with legalizing marijuana for medical purposes in Kentucky. Recommendations from a report summarizing the policy considerations to protect the public health should the Kentucky legislature decide to legalize medical marijuana included:

• Require patients to have a medical recommendation card obtained from a licensed physician;

• Require licenses for cultivators, processors, and dispensaries;

• Restrict advertising and marketing that reaches and/or targets minors;

• Prohibit kid-friendly shapes, colors, product formats and packaging;

• Prohibit public consumption and smoking of marijuana;

• Restrict sales to face-to-face transactions in licensed, 21-and-older, brick-and-mortar locations, and create a sufficient compliance check system;

• Establish an accredited testing-lab system and ensure traceability throughout the supply chain; and,

• Establish reporting requirements for ongoing public health impacts.

 

2020: Children’s Health

Moving Kids Toward Natural Highs: Kentucky Opportunities to Prevent Youth Substance Use, Suicide and Risky Behaviors was the topic for the Bost Forum in 2020. Because of the pandemic, our Foundation presented the Forum – in partnership with Kentucky Youth Advocates – as a monthly webinar series. Panel discussions covered:

• The state of child health in Kentucky, including current data and understanding about the myriad contributing factors;

• Early interventions that can reduce the likelihood of risky behaviors in adolescence and beyond;

• Policies and programs that promote healthier nutrition and more physical activity;

• Understanding youth and building good mental health; and,

• Stopping vaping and substance use.

Each webinar featured several Kentucky or national experts and (except for the early interventions webinar) a youth speaker to offer their perspective of the population being discussed.

 

Data Forum

This biennial event, presented in partnership with Interact for Health, was held in Northern Kentucky to a capacity crowd of health advocates and data enthusiasts. Dr. Homer Venters, Senior Health and Justice Fellow at Community Oriented Correctional Health Services, epidemiologist and the former Chief Medical Officer of the NYC Correctional Health Services discussed data and community health and explained the main themes in his newly published book, Life and Death in Rikers Island. Data Forum participants received a copy of the book.

 

Kentucky-native, international speaker, Adobe Creative Residency alumna, and award-winning infographic designer, Jessica Bellamy, also anchored the agenda with a presentation titled, “Data Storytelling and Infographics for Social Change.”

 

Other experts included Kentucky and Ohio local public health leaders – Lynne Saddler, MD, MPH, District Director of Health, Northern Kentucky Health Department; David Carlson, MPH, Director of Epidemiology and Assessment, Hamilton County Public Health and state Medicaid; Steven Matthew Stearmer, PhD, Chief Data Officer, Ohio Department of Medicaid; and, Judy Ann Theriot, MD, CPE, Medical Director, Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

 

The full agenda, recordings and presentations are found here.

 

Health Policy Awards Program

Our Foundation offers two levels of awards to recognize individuals and organizations engaged in improving Kentucky’s health through policy change. These awards raise awareness of the role that laws, regulations and ordinances can play in creating conditions that lead to better health.

 

Anyone can nominate an individual organization for the Healthy Kentucky Policy Champion award; 2019 and 2020 recipients were:

• JUUL Breakers, a group of Johnson County middle school students, for youth anti-vaping work.

• Valerie Horn, of Whitesburg, for increasing access to healthier foods for low-income Letcher County residents.

• Carolyn Richey, of Allen County, for increasing youth access of youth to healthy foods.

• Alice Bridges ,of Louisville, for work to incorporate more effective responses to childhood trauma in schools and other systems.

• Hazard High School Tobacco-Free Ambassador Partnership, for advocating on behalf of smoke-free and tobacco-free policies and talking with their peers about reducing their tobacco use.

• Teresa Koeller, M.D, of Northern Kentucky, for helping build a comprehensive treatment and recovery model for persons with substance-use disorder.

• Jamie Bloyd ,of Lexington, for her advocacy on behalf of childhood-cancer research, prevention, and treatment.

• Sheila Schuster, of Louisville, for more than four decades of leadership to improve services for persons living with mental illness and other disabilities.

• Neva Francis, of Martin, for implementing multiple initiatives to improve community health.

• Scott Lockard, of the Kentucky River District Health Department, for leading his team to help Perry County enact a smoke-free workplace ordinance.

• Abby Hefner, a Paducah high school student, for advocating for policies to help prevent youth-tobacco use.

• Fran Feltner, of Hazard, for her work to improve rural health care.

• Rich Seckel, for protecting health care coverage gains for persons living on low incomes.

• Albert Gray, of Bardstown, for his contributions to preventing the sale of tobacco products to underage consumers at the FiveStar convenience chain.

• Sadiqa Reynolds, of Louisville, for her work to reduce racial-health and other inequities in Louisville’s African American community.

• Melissa Patrick, of Lexington, for reporting that brings attention to issues that affect health.

 

The top award given by the Foundation is the Gil Friedell Health Policy Champion award. The annual recipient receives a $5,000 cash grant to be given to the 501(c)3 organization of their choice. Friedell Award Champions in 2019 and 2020 were:

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