Mildred Thompson

Director, PolicyLink Center for Health and Place

For media inquiries: 510-418-1208

For all other inquiries: 510-663-2333 

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Expertise

• Health Disparities in Low-income Communities
• Access to Healthy Foods
• Childhood Asthma and Childhood Obesity Education

Experience

Ms. Thompson is director of the PolicyLink Center for Health and Place. A nurse by training, she works in partnership with a broad range of groups to advance new policies and approaches to improve health in low-income communities and communities of color. Through an approach that links health to environmental conditions she helps to build legislative support for strategies to increase access to healthy foods, reduce childhood obesity, and decrease the incidence of childhood asthma. Ms. Thompson co-chairs the Institute of Medicine Roundtable on Social and Racial Health Disparities.

Education

Staten Island Community College, A.A.S., nursing Richmond College, B.S., psychology/early childhood education

New York University, Master of Social Work

Selected Articles, Publications, and Media Appearances

Using Community Organizing and Community Building to Influence Policy, (2nd edition), edited by Meredith Minkler (Rutgers University Press, 2005). Chapter title: “Community Organizing and Community Building for Health.”

Community-based Health Series, PolicyLink and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, 2004.

Advisor, Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?, Four-part PBS Documentary, 2008.