Wayne State University Law Professor Peter Hammer was the inaugural speaker Nov. 15 for the Midtown Social Issues Salon, a new speaker series sponsored by Planned Parenthood Mid and South Michigan (PPMSM).
A specialist in health law and policy, Hammer is the director of WSU’s Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights. At the PPMSM Detroit health center, he led a dialogue about community building strategies that impact the health of the society as a whole. Hammer challenged the intimate crowd of women’s health care advocates and providers to think about health care more broadly than institutions and systems.
“For example, what good are affordable services if there’s no transportation to give people access to those services?” he asked.
For Hammer, community values and cultural norms can have health consequences as profound as biological science. The path to a healthier society, therefore, is not always better medicine. It’s also about stronger communities.
“We’ve seen how in Third World countries, focus on educating and empowering women has tremendously affected the health and economic welfare of the entire society,” he said. “That’s a model that could work well in the United States. Focusing on the 13-year-old girl before she drops out of school or gets pregnant will insure a healthier community in the long-run.”
The Midtown Social Issues Salon will be a continuing program of PPMSM’s Detroit health center at 4229 Cass.
“It is a way for us to engage our own community in critical discussions about issues that affect women’s health care and reproductive justice,” said Mary Hollens, PPMSM’s metro Detroit development director. “Ninety-seven percent of Planned Parenthood’s services are preventive health care, including cancer screenings, breast exams and testing and treatment of STDs. As a major component of the health care delivery system in Detroit, we feel it’s important for us to provide a place to have critical discussions about health in our community. We look forward to more salons at the health center.”
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