Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity (AFHE) earned the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation Award for Program Excellence for outstanding leadership in promoting social mission in health professions education.
Guenevere Burke, executive director of the Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity program, accepted the award on behalf of the program at the Social Mission Alliance Conference held in Durham, North Carolina, in April 2024.
Brigit Carter, a Senior Fellow from the inaugural 2017 AFHE cohort and the recipient of the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation’s 2022 Award for Excellence in Social Mission in Health Professions Education, introduced Guenevere and the fellowship, focusing on what makes this one-year, non-residential program based at George Washington University unique.
The program includes both U.S. and international fellows from multiple health professions including medicine, nursing, dentistry, physical therapy, social work and community health. These fellows from traditional health professions are joined by others doing the work in health areas such as artists, lawyers and journalists to create an interdisciplinary network that sparks creative solutions to the most pressing health equity issues of our time.
Brigit Carter
After recognizing the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, the AFHE Staff and the Senior Fellows, Guenevere remarked on the growing global community of change-makers.
We receive applications from every corner of the world and it is a powerful reminder and a small glimpse of the tremendous community that is working for health equity each and every day, and as the Social Mission Alliance and Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity, we are all a part of that.
Guenevere Burke
The Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity network is now at 123 fellows — current and graduated —from 32 countries and a sovereign tribal nation in the U.S.
The Social Mission Alliance defines social mission as activities or initiatives that teach, model, or improve community engagement, diversity, disparities reduction, value-based care, or engagement with the social determinants of health. Social mission enhancement means making programs not only better, but fairer.
Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity develops global leaders who understand the foundations of health inequity and have the knowledge, skills and courage to build more equitable organizations and communities. The fellowship does so by providing intensive learning and growth experiences and connecting fellows in a cohort network as they move forward in their careers.
At a time of upheaval in the equity space, the work that we do at the Atlantic Fellows to create solutions for better health with people from vastly different backgrounds has only grown more important.
Guenevere Burke